Bitcoin holder Mara Holdings recently acquired a wind farm in Texas to help power a portion of its cryptocurrency operations

Bitcoin holder Mara Holdings recently acquired a wind farm in Texas to help power a portion of its cryptocurrency operations. The company plans for the renewable energy source to lower its bitcoin production costs

Mara Holdings, the world's second-largest publicly traded corporate bitcoin holder, has acquired a wind farm in Texas to help power some of its cryptocurrency operations.

The company aims to lower its bitcoin production costs with "near zero" energy prices from the renewable energy source and help address the massive energy needs of bitcoin mining.

According to Chainalysis data, as of December 2022, the total electricity consumption of bitcoin miners is estimated at about 124.8 terawatt-hours per year. For perspective, the whole country of Argentina uses about 121 terawatt-hours of electricity annually.

Recently, there's been a big push to transition mining operations to cheaper, more renewable energy sources to help reduce reliance on dirty energy. Possible solutions for bitcoin's energy problem include excess energy deals, solar panels, wave energy, geothermal, and offshore or onshore wind — like that now utilized by Mara.

The company plans to continue using last-generation ASIC mining hardware to power its operations in the U.S. Without wind farm power, Mara said this hardware would "have otherwise been written off or sold into the secondary market," replaced by more energy-efficient models.

With wind power, last-generation ASICs can keep up with newer models, curbing electronic waste. All of that makes the plan a smart one, with the only real downside being that this wind farm purchased in Texas would otherwise be powering the grid. Bitcoin mining companies building their own new renewable infrastructure, or making joint investments with grid operators to do so, will be even better to ensure the percentages of clean energy continue to rise, though it's understandable that the company would want to put its plan into motion as soon as possible.

Mara has faced complaints in the state too, though, for noise pollution from one of its other mining centers, including reports of vertigo and hearing loss.

In a press release, the company said it hopes the wind farm acquisition and reuse of otherwise dated ASICs demonstrates Mara's "commitment to environmental stewardship."

"With this added renewable energy asset, MARA now owns and operates 136 megawatts of generating capacity," Mara CEO Fred Thiel said in the release. For comparison, one megawatt of commercial wind power would be enough to power close to 350 American homes, based on an estimate from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Thiel added: "This acquisition not only extends the economic life of our ASIC miners, but also drives reduction in operational costs, bringing us closer to achieving near net-zero operating costs."

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