Marathon Digital moves Montana BTC mine to pursue carbon neutrality

cointelegraph.com:

Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital Holdings plans on taking a big step toward carbon neutrality with plans to transition its Montana mining facility to use sustainable power sources elsewhere.

The Nevada-based company intends on relocating its coal-powered Hardin, Montana facility to a location that uses sustainable, non-carbon emitting energy sources. The move is aimed at helping the company reach its goal of full carbon neutrality by the end of 2022.

Marathon CEO Fred Thiel stated in an announcement from the company that he is taking efforts to “ensure our miners are as sustainably powered as possible.”

Marathon’s push for clean energy sources at its facilities reflects a shift in the Bitcoin mining industry towards environmental awareness sparked by lawmakers in jurisdictions not just across the U.S., but around the world.

Greenpeace has launched a campaign to “change the code, not the climate,” which is intended to pressure Bitcoin to transition to more power efficient technology. Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this week called crypto a “major global source” of carbon dioxide emissions in its latest report.

Miners are now quick to highlight their environmentally friendly practices. Gryphon Digital Mining and Sphere 3D cancelled a business merger on April 4 and the firms made sure to each point out in a joint announcement that they will continue to build carbon-neutral mining facilities. Gryphon achieves carbon-neutrality by acquiring carbon offsets, but Sphere 3D has not responded to a request to explain how it is a carbon neutral operation.

Marathon holds the third most Bitcoin (BTC) of any publicly traded company behind Elon Musk’s Tesla and Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy. The gap between it