Two Bitcoin mining giants are cheating out cheap electricity in a tiny town in Texas.

Both Bitdeer, a mining company spun off from the Chinese giant Bitmain, and Riot Blockchain, one of the leading publicly traded Bitcoin miners in the US, operate data centers in a former aluminum smelter in the city of Rockdale, Texas.

The city’s aluminum smelter used to be the largest in the world until the company that operated it, Alcoa, began shutdown in 2008. According to Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, the energy capacity of this facility was wasted from the time Alcoa left the company the miners set up a shop.

Despite being a tiny rural town of just 5,600 people, Rockdale embodies all of the perks industrial miners seek – crypto-friendly politicians, vast land with abandoned industrial infrastructure for relocation, and cheap electricity thanks to the Texan Deregulated Market.

Rockdale Mayor John King describes the relationship between the local grid operator, the Electrical Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and the miners as mutually beneficial. He emphasized that miners regularly use electrical energy that would otherwise be wasted and that they can also switch off immediately if electricity is needed elsewhere. He added:

“Miners undertake to buy a certain amount of electricity and sell it on the market [value] and make a profit. You have a two or three cent contract … and you can sell it for $ 9 per kilowatt hour. “

As Cointelegraph reported on October 7th, Riot has more than tripled its bitcoin production this year.

The company currently estimates the facility at its Rockdale facility is producing over 500 BTC per month. At current prices, the amount mined is $ 30 million per month. Riot says the site has 100,000 mining rigs.

Related: Crypto Cowboys: Texas Counties welcome Bitcoin miners with open arms

Texan lawmakers are pushing for the state’s bitcoin mining to continue to grow, with Senator Ted Cruz describing mining as a means to extract the natural gas the state is currently experiencing.

During the Blockchain Summit in Texas on October 10, Cruz argued that natural gas is currently exploding in west Texas because “there is no transmission facility to get this natural gas where it is available”. would be used “.

“Use this power to mine Bitcoin. Part of the nice thing about it is that when you do you are immediately helping the environment because instead of burning natural gas, you are using it wisely, ”he added.