Rural Cheyenne Residents Have A Noisy New Neighbor — A Bitcoin Miner

CHEYENNE — Call it a low growl or a low rumble, like the far-off sound of a train constantly approaching, but never arriving or passing by.

That’s how one homeowner and a neighbor of CleanSpark’s newest bitcoin mining operation in Cheyenne, Wyoming, described the new sound he is hearing in his neighborhood.

“It’s not something that just drives you crazy,” said Dave Simpson, who lives in the Cherry Hills of Cheyenne subdivision. “But it used to be quiet out here, and now it’s just not as quiet as it used to be.”

The noise gets louder at times, depending on which way the wind is blowing, said Simpson, who’s also a freelance columnist for Cowboy State Daily. 

When the wind is coming from the south, in particular, that’s when he and his wife Caryl can hear it the most.

“About 10 days ago, I didn’t yet know the thing was there, and I was awakened at 3 o’clock in the morning by a sound I thought was our generator,” Caryl said. “I went over to the window, in fact, to see if our generator had kicked on, it was that loud. But it wasn’t our generator.”

Simpson said he’s driven to the CleanSpark location to verify that the noise he’s hearing is really coming from CleanSpark.

“We’ve been here for 12 years now,” Simpson said. “And I know the sound of trains going by, and I know that when the wind is right, we hear road noise from I-80. We expect that. But this is something different, this is new.”

Simpson added that despite some “heavy-duty” neighbors nearby, this is the first time he’s heard a noise like this one.

“We have Lowe’s Distribution Center, Wyoming Machinery, Truss Craft, Dish and two huge Microsoft data centers, and none of them make any noise that neighbors have to listen to 24/7,” Simpson said. “Union Pacific makes noise, but only when trains go by, so CleanSpark is different.”

On Location At Venture Drive

CleanSpark is a bitcoin mining company with a growing fleet of sites in Georgia, where they originated, as well as in Tennessee, Mississippi, New York, Nevada, Utah and now Wyoming.

CleanSpark’s bitcoin mine had seven units going at its location on Venture Drive in Cheyenne’s northeast industrial park on Wednesday afternoon.

The noise the units made up close and personal is considerable. Standing right next to them, decibels ranged from mid-70s on up to almost 89, depending on the direction of the wind, according to a cell phone app a CleanSpark employee used to test the sound on the spot. 

A typical vacuum sweeper tends to be at the 75-decibel level, while dishwashers fall in the 40 to 60-decibel category, depending on how modern the unit is.

CleanSpark’s Wyoming External Affairs Consultant, Jason Begger, told Cowboy State Daily that noise complaints from neighbors are something the company takes seriously — although this is the first complaint he’s heard about the Venture Drive location.

“It’s great that this potential issue has been brought to our attention,” he said. “One thing that CleanSpark prides itself on is being a good neighbor. (A company’s) reputation can be tarnished instantly if you’re not doing things the right way.”

Begger said the site is still under construction and the company is still implementing some of its sound mitigation strategy. That will include things like trying different blades and motors and planting some trees.

“This spring, we’ll start landscaping the new berms, and doing some things to kind of improve, not only the visual aspects of the site, but also operational aspects that will hopefully alleviate a lot of that,” he said.

Mayor Says Company Already On It

Mitigation steps the company is already taking include a sound test by the city of Cheyenne, to ensure that sound from the bitcoin mines doesn’t travel past the property’s boundaries. 

“That is zoned light industrial,” Mayor Patrick Collins told Cowboy State Daily. “So, by our light industrial rules, the noise cannot go beyond the limits of the property.”

There is a procedure for a conditional use permit that would allow a higher level of sound to travel, but that would require notifying neighbors and include a public process. 

Collins said Simpson’s complaint is the first he’s heard about the new bitcoin mine but added that CleanSpark is already implementing some sound checks “up over the hill,” away from the bitcoin mine, to test the sound levels.

“They’re very concerned about it,” Collins said. “And they said if there’s things they need to do to mitigate that, they want to be good neighbors. So, they’re willing to work with me and the community to make sure that happens.”

Begger said one thing the company could consider are sound walls, as a last resort, if other strategies don’t eliminate the issue.

Collins said he has appreciated CleanSpark’s investment in Cheyenne.

“It’s a huge investment in Cheyenne, with the use of electricity and the revenue that’s going to come from that,” Collins said. “But we also expect them to be good neighbors, and that’s their expectation also.”

Cool New Immersion Technology

CleanSpark owns two bitcoin mining sites in Cheyenne. The one at Venture Drive and the other about a mile from F.E. Warren Air Force Base, which was owned by a Chinese company. The Biden administration forced the Chinese company to close up and sell out, and CleanSpark announced it was purchasing the site in September of last year.

Both sites are using a new approach to bitcoin mining that is much quieter than predecessor bitcoin mines have been. All of the servers are immersed in a dielectric oil that is not only stable at high temperature but has excellent electrical insulation properties. 

Similar to the type of oils used on electrical transformers, these types of oils provide both insulation and cooling for electrical systems. 

The oil surrounds all of the servers in each unit and gets pumped to a radiator-style system that sits on top of each trailer. That cools the oil down, keeping everything at a constant — albeit toasty warm — temperature.

“The insulating properties of the oil don’t conduct electricity, and the high flashpoint provides fire resistance,” Begger said. “By being submerged in the oil, if there was ever an electrical issue with one of the servers, it’d prevent sparks and the likelihood of a fire.”

The approach is much less noisy than having air conditioners constantly going to keep things at the right temperature, Begger added.

“That old technology with fans was notorious for being extremely loud, extremely disruptive,” Begger said. “But this is just a completely different type of technology, where you don’t have the same sort of issues as there were previously.

How Much Bitcoin Can A Bitcoin Mine Mine?

Each server at the Venture Drive site mines a value of $17 minimum in bitcoin value each day, and each unit has 1,152 servers going. Right now, that means about $137,088 in bitcoin value is being mined each day from that particular mining site. Four additional units will be added, for an eventual total of 11 trailers.

The power use at the site right now is 42 Megawatts or 6 Megawatts per unit. 

The F.E. Warren site, which is not yet up and running, will do slightly less bitcoin value than that per day, due to using less power.

Begger said CleanSpark is looking to expand in Wyoming and other states.

Wyoming is their first Western state, and they expect to employ about 20 people in Cheyenne, between the two bitcoin sites they’re building right now.

Finding new sites, regardless of state, has become tricky.

“Four or five years ago, there was this kind of bitcoin land rush,” he said. “Everyone was trying to find sites. From this point on, growth is about power and finding the right places to do this. Because you don’t want to do a big industrial operation in the wrong place.”

Technology for bitcoin mines is continuing to improve, Begger added, and he believes expansion for CleanSpark is just a matter of building the right relationships.

“It’s developing those good relationships with utilities and kind of walking hand in hand to see where the sites exist,” Begger said. “And the relationship with Black Hills has been great. They see the value in kind of helping them balance out (reserve power).”

CleanSpark works by drawing on the energy company’s unused reserves, mandated by statute, which normally sits unused, and thus, without payment, Begger explained.

“CleanSpark provides an avenue for them to sell that, monetize that,” he said. “When they need it, they don’t even have to call and say ‘Hey, can you shut down. It’s all computerized.’”

That means the power level drops automatically if Black Hills needs the reserve for something else, the instant it needs it.

Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.