Multiple fans are needed to cool the numerous computer servers of cryptocurrency mining farms, like the ones shown above.

It owns and maintains high-voltage transmission lines and substations for the EMCs. The currently proposed site is on the almost 5.5-acre grounds of a power substation owned by Georgia Transmission Corporation, which is in turn owned by 38 electric membership cooperatives, or EMCs, in the state. The Bulloch County cryptocurrency data center would be a first for Excelsior EMC, which would not operate the facility itself but is securing the site for a company, or group of companies, called LN Mining, which operates the one in Swainsboro. Another, served by Altamaha EMC, operates within the city limits of Swainsboro in Emanuel County. A Chinese-Canadian firm contracted last year to build a cryptocurrency center at Screven County’s industrial park near Sylvania. Relatively cheap land and low taxes are sometimes also cited as factors. That was his answer when asked why so many cryptocurrency mining companies are locating in Georgia. But the data center, while expected to create just one job, would be a huge electric power customer for Metter-based Excelsior Electric Membership Corporation and a tax revenue source for Bulloch County’s local governments and school system. This has raised some concerns among neighbors of the site, which is at the intersection of Georgia Highway 119 and the 119 Spur, across from Mud Road southeast of Stilson. The racks of computers generate a lot of heat and so have many cooling fans, which make continuous noise. The computers mine data to verify transactions made with encrypted digital currencies such as Bitcoin, which exist independently of governments. It won’t be a literal mine digging in the external world, but a large collection of banked server-like computers inside steel pods, like shipping containers, mounted on concrete foundations surrounded by a gravel pad. A cryptocurrency “mining” facility, a completely new kind of development for Bulloch County – but already established in neighboring counties and elsewhere in Georgia – is moving forward in the county’s zoning approval processes.

Excelsior emc generator