Bitcoin Mining Facility Could Come To Van Buren Industrial Park

Caney Fork Electric can provide the 10 megawatts needed by a proposed VBC bitcoin mining facility.

Contractor Cliff Evans met with Van Buren County officials Tuesday. Evans said he represents a Little Rock Arkansas company that wants to build the facility in the Van Buren County Industrial Park.

Evans said 300-plus computers that do the mining are housed in a 400-foot container.

“It’s a high-voltage facility,” Evans said. “There’s nothing that comes out of these that can contaminate the ground or anything like that. Biggest question people ask is the noise. It’s about 65 decibels.”

Evans said the containers use one megawatt of power meaning Caney Fork’s initial 10 megawatts would support 10 containers with more than 3,000 computers each.

A Caney Fork representative said adding additional power would be roughly a two-year buildout.

Evans said that this would be his first construction for the prospective bitcoin operator.

“I’ve built 220 megawatts worth of these sites in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky,” Evans said. “The company I’m looking to build for right now is Newrays LLC out of Little Rock, Arkansas.”

Van Buren County Mayor David Sullivan said Tuesday’s meeting was a fact-finding mission to answer questions. Sullivan said another meeting would be held to include a member of Newrays LLC.