- Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources says crypto mining with already generated nuclear energy is a signpost towards a “new economy”
- Trial could start in nuclear facility soon
- Announcement comes nine months after an office in a Ukranian nuclear plant was found to contain illegal crypto mining equipment
Ukraine looks like it is testing the mining of cryptocurrencies with nuclear power, nine months after an amateur mining operation in a nuclear power plant in the country was halted by the country’s Secret Service. According to a Facebook post from the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the country has generated a surplus of atomic energy and is working out what to do with it, and cryptocurrency seems to be its primary target.
Country “Taking Steps” to Improve Digitization
In the Facebook post posted yesterday, the Ministry stated that President Vladimir Zelensky had stated that he desired “rapid changes” in the country’s use of digitization, adding that he “wanted to make Ukraine a digital leader”. In order to achieve this, the post adds, the country’s leaders will have to “jointly prepare initiatives…and take steps taking barriers to digital economy and electronic governance.”
Using this directive, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources has decided what it wants to do with its surplus of nuclear energy (translated):
Having a profícit of atomic generation, one of the modern tools of the use of excess electricity is to direct it to cryptocurrencies. This not only allows you to keep the guaranteed load of nuclear power plant, but it will also give the opportunity for enterprises to attract additional funds. I.e. opens the way to fundamentally new economy, new approaches, new market system.
By doing this, the Ministry hopes to turn something that is “passive” into an “asset”, with a trial potentially set to go ahead through utility company Energoatom, although very few details are given as to how they will go about it and what they hope to mine.
Idea Stolen from Electricity Thief?
Energatom made headlines last year when the administrative offices of one of their power stations in South Ukraine, SE NAEK Energoatom, was packed out with GPU mining rigs and used for illegal crypto mining, a process that was said at the time to have risked state secrets. However, the discovery of the attempt doesn’t seem to have been all bad as it seems to have planted the idea in officials’ heads.
