Computational parasites and hydropower

A political ecology of Bitcoin mining on the Columbia River

Bibliographic Data

ID4464574
AuthorsNick Lally (0000-0001-7254-3168, University of Kentucky), Kelly Kay (0000-0003-1824-2617, University of California, Los Angeles), Jim Thatcher (University of Washington Tacoma, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume5
Issue1
Pages18-38
Publication date2022-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/2514848619867608
OpenAlexW2968000606
LanguageEN
Citations received45
References cited42

Over the past three years, the dams of Chelan County, Washington, its watershed and fish, the electrical grid and the laborers who maintain it, and cleared land with warehouses filled with computers, have all been enrolled as part of the decentralized digital infrastructure of Bitcoin. While popular accounts of the Bitcoin network correctly report the massive scale of energy it consumes and its potential environmental ramifications, in practice, the material geographies of Bitcoin are highly uneven and intertwined with specific infrastructural, ecological, and economic systems. In this article, we examine Bitcoin's impacts on Chelan County, untangling the processes that occur as the distributed, digital infrastructure consumes the very real material resources of one place to produce digital goods used in another. In so doing, we examine not only the material costs of networks like Bitcoin, but also their historical ties to older processes of accumulation

Business · Clearance · Hydropower · Political science · Politics · Watershed · Blockchain Technology Applications and Security · Computer Science · Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance · Law · Water Governance and Infrastructure · Ecology