Bitcoin mining facility TeraWulf Inc. announced Monday it had reached an agreement with a subsidiary of Talen Energy Corporation to source zero-carbon nuclear power from Talen’s 2.5 GW Susquehanna Station in Pennsylvania for its Nautilus Cryptomine bitcoin mining facility.
The facility is expected to be the first bitcoin mining site powered by 100 percent “behind the meter” zero-carbon nuclear energy.
“The amendments to the Nautilus JV agreement enable TeraWulf to reduce our near-term capital obligations at the Nautilus Cryptomine Facility while preserving opportunities for future capacity expansion.” TeraWulf Co-Founder and CEO Paul Prager said, “The amended joint venture will now focus on infrastructure investment and governance only, enabling each party to deploy its own miners. With these modifications, TeraWulf can optimize two critical value drivers for the Company; 50 MW of two-cent power for five years at the Nautilus facility and deploying miners at our wholly owned Lake Mariner facility, where we are aggressively ramping operations.”
According to the companies, the Nautilus Cryptomine Facility benefits from one of the lowest electricity costs among publicly trading bitcoin mining operations in the United States, thanks to contracted power. That contract allows for the first 100 MW of gross mining capacity at $0.02 per kilowatt hour for an initial term of five years. (the “initial block”). Under the agreement’s amendments, TeraWulf would maintain the benefit of its previous share of 50MW of the initial block, and its affiliate, Beowulf Electricity & Data Inc., would continue to operate the Nautilus Cryptomine facility under the previous agreement.
Under the new amended agreement, TeraWulf retains a 33 percent ownership interest in the Nautilus JV. The Nautilus Cryptomine Facility will have access to up to 300 MW of mining capacity from Talen’s Susquehanna Station, with each JV member having the right to increase digital infrastructure capacity at the site by 50 MW beyond the initial 200MW planned.
The Nautilus Cryptomine Facility is expected to begin mining operations in the last quarter of 2022.