Nuclear coins: Russian officials plan to mine cryptocurrency using nuclear plant energy

Alexander Drozdenko, governor of the Leningrad region near to St Petersburg in Russia, is seriously considering to launch a mining center connected with the Leningrad nuclear power plant. The statement was made in his interview to Leonid Davydov, Russian politologist, who posted the recording at his Telegram channel (Telegram messenger needed, video in Russian). Here we must clarify that while St Petersburg, formerly called Leningrad, has been renamed in 1990s, its surrounding area was not. This does not mean the power plant stands somewhere in St Petersburg, it’s actually 70 kilometers away from it, having a satellite town Sosnovy Bor (can be translated as “Pine Forest”).

The second thing that needs to be immediately clarified is that the plant is currently undergoing massive renovation, its old building is going to be replaced with a new one standing right next to it. And Mr. Drozdenko offers not to demolish the old site, but rather use is as a vast mining farm. This corresponds with his old plans to create a technological park in the area, and he already talked with the representatives of Rosatom (Russian organization responsible for everything nuclear in the country), including its current CEO. The governor notes they were surprised at first, but after time this idea started to attract them more.

The official overall seems to have done his homework on mining well, explaining that in that old building, once everything related to nuclear reactors is removed, mining farm could be placed and the old coolant system would perfectly solve one of the biggest issues every miner had. While talking about energy issues and tariffs, he told that it would be much better to have both the new plant and the mining center to operate within one legal entity.

However, the first Bitcoin, or the first “cucumber grown on that mining farm” (as Drozdenko puts it) will be mined only in 2021, which is 3-4 years later from now. He tells that firstly, the reactors from the old plant building should be removed, and this will take the whole 2018. However, during the next year he plans to talk with federal and local authorities as well as with the Russian Ministry of Energy to ensure the viability of the project and assess all its risks.