Cyber Representative, BBC World Service
BBCZambizi is filled with millions of gallons of water crashed on stones and reduces rapids.
But Zambian is going to cut another sound from the shrub trees.
“It’s the sound of money!” A smiling Philip Walton says when he surveyed the shipping container in which 120 computers are busy busy through complex calculations that confirm the bitcoin transactions.
In return, they are automatically rewarded by the network.
We are at the northwestern tip of Zambia near the border with the DRC, and of the bitcoin mines I have visited – this is the weirdest.
Water and electronic devices do not usually mix well, but this is exactly the proximity of the river that bitcoases are developed here.
Philip’s ear has been plugged directly into a hydroelectric power plant that channels some Zimbizy’s Torinant through too many turbines to generate permanent, clean electricity.
More importantly, it is cheaper for bitcoin mining.
Philip’s Kenyan -based company was so cheap for gridless that it dragged its shipping container filled with fragile bitcoin mining computers on the Bapmi tight roads 14 hours away from the nearest city.
Each machine makes about $ 5 (90 3.90) a day. If more coins are high, if it falls, it is less.
Occasionally Philip looks at his smart watch – the home screen that shows BitCoin dollar -changing skilled line.
Currently it is about a coin, 000 80,000, but Philip says it can even make a profit when the price of bitcoin decreases with cheap electricity and partnership with the energy company on the site.
“We acknowledged that we need to share with the power company here and give them a share of the tax. And that’s why we are willing to come out here, so it is that it allows us to effectively gain affordable power.”
The Zengamina hydropower plant is huge but technically it is a mini grid – a stand power of power for the local community.
It was built in the early 2000s for $ 3 million with charity donations.
British Zambian Daniel Rae run the site after leading his missionary family building project, primarily after providing electricity to a local hospital.
It now provides strength to around 15,000 people in the local area, but the project could not be met due to the slowdown by the community.
Allowing Bit Coiners to set up a shop here is a change in business.
“Every day we were wasting more than half the energy, which we can produce, which also meant that we are not earning it to meet our operating costs,” says Daniel, “Daniel says. We are not earning it to meet our operating costs. We need a large user of power in this area and there is a change of game with gridlessness.”
BitCoin Mine now accounts for about 30 % of the plant revenue, which allows them to keep the local city prices low.
BitCoin and his economics are certainly far from people’s minds in Zhengamina.
The town itself is a few miles away from the plants and has no more than a dozen sheds that contain cross roads.
In just one shop, a refrigerator and a dozen kids are around a sectarian computer that selects a song to choose a song, which makes them wander around adults after they grow about their day.
Although the Hydro Electric Plant came online in 2007, it took a few more years to connect it to the local city, and then more time to connect individual homes and businesses.
So, some people like the Nai Demian are just enjoying the novelty of wireing a year and a half ago.
“Unless I got the power, I didn’t have anything and could do nothing. When I got strength, I bought everything at the same time.”
He is not joking. At night, his small barber shop is a backer of strength with a TV player -playing music videos, Christmas lights wire and his hair clipper buzz. Like insects, young youngsters walk in their barber shop like a hostel.
“Getting power has changed my life,” he smiled. “Now the money I am making is helping me pay for school fees from a shop shop.”
Hugging electricity is a huge business decision for Dimian. At home he distributes a light bulb between the two rooms that builds a small house.
Somewhere in the city, sisters are watching Tumba and Lucy Moshe on the way.
Like many young people, they are sticking to their phone.
“Before the city gets power, it was basically just a bush,” says Lucy.
They say that small solar panels came from small electricity.
“There is no refrigerator or no TV, no mobile phone network,” says Tumba.
Lucy added, “Lightning completely changed the lives of the people here.”
“We can charge our phone, we have a network. We can talk to each other.”
Many people here do not know or care about BitCoin Mine, who have participated in helping to continue the hydro plant things.
But soon they will see that this container once again turned to the city on the way to another.
Zhengamina Hydro has gained a major investment to help extend more villages and join the national grid.
Soon the ear -harvesting energy will be sold back to the national grid and mining bitcoin will no longer be profitable in Zhengmina.
Philip and the team are controversial about it and insist that this is good news. They will succeed here for a few years and eventually they are happy to help Zhengamina. And made a clean profit in BitCoin.
The company says there are many places with so -called stuck energy that they can move forward with their bitcoin mine.
In three different African countries, gridless already have six such sites.
Another Bitcoin, north of Zhengamina, eliminates additional energy from a hydroelectric plant administered by the National Park in Mine Congo. Park says it is helping to fund safety projects.
But the grid lace now plans to take the next step – to build your hydro plant from the beginning to the ear and bring electricity to the rural areas for Bitcoin.
The company is busy raising tens of millions of dollars for the project, says Janet Mini, co -founder of the company.
They are focusing on the so -called Run of River Hydro Electric models in Zhengamina, and in the continent they say there is an abundance of “unused hydro capacity”.
“A user -powered, adaptive energy model is essential for expanding, affordable and sustainable energy access, which meets the needs of African communities.”
The company is not a charity and believes that for developers and investors, it can only be done through bitcoin to ensure long -term economic stability.
Finding places for a new plant or tapping from the present is an easy part.
The company still faces resistance to some officials and companies that see BitCoin as electric energy and self -use, which may otherwise be used by rural people.
But the company insists that encouragement is always to sell to most buyers and it will always be, they say, become a local community.
History tells us that without the privileges or rules, the scale bitcoin mining can put pressure on the public energy grid. In Kazakhstan in 2020-2021, the government’s use of energy consumption increased by 7 % in 2020-2021 before trimming the wings of the growing industry.
In the United States – Bitcoin Mining’s new Mica – miners, locals and residents are common when there is more demand for electricity.
Authorities have signed contracts with some mining giants to ensure that they are full of electricity to their warehouses full of computer when the grid needs balance.
For example, in New York, the Greenjas Power Plant, whose renovation was renovated in the ear, was declared mandatory for mining to provide electricity to the grid during a cold snap in January.
If President Donald Trump’s Bitcoin will need to expand agreements for “mining, mint and the United States”.
The environmental impact of the industry is also a major concern. It is estimated that BitCoin’s mining uses so much energy like a small country like Poland.
But according to researchers at the University of Cambridge who make annual estimates on the use of bitcoin energy, it is changing more sustainable energy mixtures.
This is a small part of the overall picture of the setups like Zangamina.
But she is also a rare example of a controversial industry that creates more than digital coins.
