There has been a lot of attention lately to the subject of Bitcoin mining and noise, with Granbury Texas grabbing the headlines of late. I decided to ask “Is the media reporting on the Granbury Town in Texas balanced?”
I did my own investigation, and found out some important context that Time Magazine and other media agencies left out of their reporting on a Bitcoin mining farm in Granbury, Texas.
1. Missing context about Granbury’s wider set of neighbors
The first important point is the location of the Bitcoin mining operations. Time calls Granbury a “Bitcoin mining town”. There is certainly a large Bitcoin mining operation in the town. What Time did not say was that Granbury was an industrial town long before Bitcoin mining arrived, featuring three industrial scale gas plants, two of which are in close proximity to residents.
Gas Plants are very noisy. How noisy? According to Turbomachine Magazine, “The mean noise levels are somewhat similar for coal plants and gas plants, with both averaging between 80 and 85 dB.” This gives some level of objective support to the view that Time should have investigated all sources of industrial noise in the area, rather than deciding on behalf of their readers through omission which one they should think about and which ones they should not.
In addition to not mentioning the three industrial scale gas plants, Time Magazine used a feature photo (see below) that was framed in such a way that none of the gas plants were in view, making the scene look visually like a battle directly between a Bitcoin mining operation and residents.
Here is the photo presented by Time Magazine
Here is another photo I recently gained access to, which shows a fuller picture of the site. Two of the three gas plants are in view, and have been circled.
2. Decibel readings confirm Gas plants are also emitting significant noise
The second piece of important missing context from the Time Magazine article is that decibel readings have been taken at the Gas plant to the right of the image above, and at the Bitcoin mining operation. These decibel readings suggest that the noise emissions from the gas plant is currently at least as loud, if not louder than the Bitcoin mining operation.
It could be argued that the Bitcoin mining operation appears to be closer to the greater cluster of houses and therefore could still be emitting most of the noise overflow heard by residents. However, irrespective of this, to fail to mention three industrial scale gas plants who may have a noise output of 80-85 decibels, is a significant omission on the part of Time Magazine and other media outlets.
The image below shows average 15 minute readings recorded by Bitcoin mining operation MARA. “3” shows the location of the gas plant, where decibel readings are similar to location “2” (intersection of noise from Gas Plant, Bitcoin Mining operation and Mitchell Bend Highway, and less than location “1” (Bitcoin mining operation), with sound levels of 58 dBA.
3. No mention that sound readings suggest a significant decrease since MARA took operation of the site
The image below shows the same land footprint at the time when MARA first took possession of the Bitcoin mining site. As we can see, the decibel readings are significantly higher than the current levels at the time of the Time Magazine article.
Knowing whether noise is trending up, down or staying the same; knowing whether the owner of the site producing the noise is taking action is very important contextualizing information to add to investigative reporting.
I understand from my talks with MARA that this information was provided to Time, yet Time Magazine in its final article opted not to share this information with its readers.
4. Little mention of Future Plans
It turns out that MARA has a detailed plan to reduce noise emissions, with what look like aggressive (and expensive) deadlines. Immersion cooling this level of Bitcoin mining is very costly. Again, I see very little acknowledgment of the actions that MARA both have, and continue to take until the issue is permanently solved.
- September 2024: 30% of the site is expected to be converted to liquid immersion cooling.
- October 2024: Updates to the sound wall are expected to be completed.
- October 2024: 40% of the site is expected to be converted to liquid immersion cooling.
- November 2024: Start planting trees and enhancing landscaping.
- December 2024: 100-110 air-cooled containers are expected to have been deactivated.
- December 2024: 50% of the site is expected to have been converted to liquid immersion cooling.
To Time’s credit, they did include some of MARA’s future plans, and have also corrected one error and one significant omission (that MARATHON’s energy consumption at the site has almost halved since taking possession) that was not included in the original article. (See “Correction” below).
Correction, July 16
The original version of this story misstated when Marathon started operating the Granbury Bitcoin mine. It bought the mine in December 2023 but did not start operating it until early 2024. The story has also been updated to clarify how the mine’s energy consumption has changed.
However, the article allows this comment to go unchallenged “This whole thing is an eye opener for me into profit over people”, despite the evidence that MARA is in fact losing significant revenue as it attempts to sort this out.
All Time Magazine had to do was to consult someone in the Bitcion mining industry and ask “How much revenue will MARA be forgoing by reducing their power consumption by 110MW per month?”
Since Time did not ask this question, I ran the numbers, and the answer is “At the current price of Bitcoin, at least $4Million per month in lost revenue in addition to the added expense of moving to immersion mining to permanently solve the issue.
With regards to covering MARA’s future project plan to reduce noise, Time said only “A representative for Marathon Digital Holdings says the company is transitioning to a quieter form of cooling” but did not say that MARA had gone further than this to release a detailed project timeline with milestones and dates to address the issue.
5. Rel-introduction of three debunked claims about Bitcoin mining, unrelated to the Granbury residents‘ concerns
Here, Time Magazine strays from pastures of omission, into the swamps of misinformation.
5.1 Time claims that Bitcoin mining has caused “gas plants and other fossil fuel emitters to spring back into action”. This is false.
I can understand why Time Magazine would think that. This is often stated by journalists.The two examples are Greenidge: Lake Senaca Gas Plant, and a Haddin, Montana Coal Factory.
However, the claim is incorrect: no Bitcoin mining currently occurs on resurrected fossil fuel plants.
The Greenidge Gas plant was not resurrected to mine bitcoin (this was misreported) but to supply power back to the grid in 2017, and did not commence bitcoin mining until two years later. The SEC filings confirm this. Additionally, we can see from Greenidge’s initial press release announcing its exploration into bitcoin mining dated March 5, 2020 here that it started with 1MW of crypto-mining in 2019.
The Montana coal factory is the other facility often cited as an example of Bitcoin mining perpetuating fossil fuel power. However it has not been mining bitcoin since late 2022. It was fully migrated to a wind farm in Texas.
5.2. Time presents a narrative that Bitcoin mining places strain on grids, while not offering value. This is not only false, and there is a body of peer review research showing it to be false.
In making their assessment, Time Magazine did not consult Texas’ grid operator, who would have been the person best placed to offer an informed view on Bitcoin mining’s relationship with grids. Instead they sought the opinion of lieutenant governor Dan Patrick, who is not an expert on either electrical grids or Bitcoin mining.
The former interim CEO of ERCOT, Brad Jones who was grid operator during a breakneck rollout of solar and wind generation in Texas stated “the capability [of bitcoin] to meet our ancillary services means lower cost for all consumers in the state of Texas.”
Jones also confirmed that Bitcoin mining was helping to “balance our grid more efficiently”, and provide a “home for more renewable energy on the grid.”
The ability for Bitcoin mining to support renewable development and “provide stability to the energy grid‘ has also been observed in independent peer reviewed publications. Time Magazine omits to mention the body of peer review research supporting the decarbonizing and stabilizing impact Bitcoin mining has on electrical grids.
5.3. Time Magazine implies that there is an equally negative grid impact of AI and Bitcoin Mining. This is again incorrect.
The end of quotes Dan Patrick mentioning AI and Bitcoin datacenters together, suggesting their impact on the grid is equal, and negative in both cases. While Time Magazine are within their rights to quote whoever they wish, they should be aware that his implication that AI both negatively impact grids is not supported by independent energy experts.
For example, as early as 2021, Joshua D. Rhodes, Thomas Deetjen and Caitlin Smith showed that flexible data centers like Bitcoin mining allow grid owners to add more intermittent renewable energy sources to the grid, thereby having a net decarbonizing impact on grids. (see graphic below).
Conclusion:
The omissions from the Time article are not trivial and raise many questions.
Why did Time not mention that Granbury was in a noisy industrial area with three gas plants in close proximity in addition to a Bitcoin mining facility?
Why did Time not share the data showing that MARA’s efforts to reduce noise have already resulted in noise reductions?
Why did Time unnecessarily steer away from the issue at hand, to rehypothicate general and widely debunked environmental claims about Bitcoin?
Was Times’ intention indeed to inform readers and help find a root-cause solution for a community in need, or was it to write an article that cast Bitcoin mining in a bad light, using a combination of selective data and debunked data to do so?
Because of Time’s selective investigation of the noise issue, there is now not a very real risk that the Bitcoin mining noise issue will be addressed, but the other sources of industrial noise will not, meaning that the residents are little better off? If this is the result, we probably won’t hear this part of the story from Time.