Can the fragile Texas power grid handle a cryptomining boom?

Record-breaking heat across Texas has pushed its fragile power grid to the brink. But extreme temperatures are doing something else in the famously pro-business state: stirring opposition to energy-guzzling crypto miners who’ve flocked there seeking low-cost energy and a deregulatory stance.

Ten industrial-scale crypto miners now draw from the Texas power grid, according to its overseer, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. ERCOT, as it is known, declined to say how much power the miners currently consume, but Trudi Webster, a spokesperson for the council, said miners’ consumption is anticipated to be 18 gigawatts in coming years. Current grid capacity is around 80 gigawatts, but it too is expected to grow.

Bitcoin miners deploy thousands of high-powered computers to solve complex mathematical equations; when they succeed, the miners earn a bitcoin. Annual electricity use attributed to bitcoin mining roughly equals the consumption of Belgium, according to the University of Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index.