Rockdale has been bleeding blue collar jobs for a decade. Now, Bitmain has struck a deal to mine crypto there.
The Alcoa plant in Rockdale, Texas, hasn't smelted aluminum in a decade. When it ceased[1] operations in September 2008, it laid off 660 workers, roughly 10 percent of the town's population. At the time, Reuters reported that Alcoa put the blame for the closure on "power supply issues."
It was an odd statement, given that Alcoa built[2] the Sandnow power plant in 1951 to power its aluminum smelting operation. Luminant, the power generating company at the plant in 2008, thought so too. In a statement, it said:
"There have been no new significant power generation concerns or new pricing issues – even after Hurricane Ike. Alcoa has a history of using layoffs like this as a vehicle for managing costs and driving the company's profitability. Alcoa should acknowledge its independent decisions instead of blaming power supply issues and unspecified 'market conditions.'"
But Luminant, a subsidiary of Vistra, announced[3] last fall it would be closing Sandnow as well, along with another central Texas coal-fired plant. Those two plants employed 650 workers. Vistra blamed low electricity prices for the closures.
Bitmain to the Rescue?
But cheap electricity is just what cryptocurrency mining operations need, and apparently Bitmain saw an opportunity. It announced[4] today that it is turning part of the Alcoa site into a "blockchain data center and cryptocurrency mining facility," with an anticipated opening sometime in the first half of 2019. It projects that it will add 400 new full-time jobs over its first two years.
According to a press release[5] from the Rockdale Municipal Development District (MDD), that doesn't include "an estimated 137 spin-off jobs
