NOT A QUIET LITTLE TOWN

The incessant din of a bitcoin mine in overlooked rural America

- ANDREW R. CHOW 

EVERY NIGHT, THE NURSE ANESTHETIST Cheryl Shadden lies awake in her home in Granbury, Texas, listening to a nonstop roar. "It's like sitting on the runway of an airport where jets are taking off, one after another," she says. "You can't speak to somebody five feet away and have them hear you at all?"

The noise comes from a nearby bitcoin-mining operation, which set up shop at a power plant in Granbury last year. Since then, residents in the surrounding area have complained to public officials about an incessant din that they say keeps them awake, gives them migraines, and apparently has scared off wildlife. "My citizens are suffering," says Hood County Constable John Shirley.

Rural America has not shared much in the wealth of the tech boom or, in areas without broadband, even much of the tech. But the impacts of bitcoin mining-an energy-intensive process that powers and protects cryptocurrency-are distinctly negative for many residents: noise, carbon pollution, and higher utility bills. Some 34 large-scale bitcoin mines operate across the U.S., according to the New York Times. And despite high-profile crypto collapses in 2022, mining companies last year expanded operations to cash in on a rebound. One study said global energy consumption for mining doubled.