Miners to Use a Decommissioned NPP

Other local officials have also announced intentions to conduct mining business in their regions. Authorities in Leningrad Oblast, bordering the federal city of Saint Petersburg, plan to create a tech park for cryptocurrency miners. It will be built on the premises of the nuclear power plant in Sosnovy Bor, governor Alexandr Drozdenko revealed. The Leningrad Atomic Electro-Station (LAES, or LNPP) will be decommissioned in 2020-2021.

A new power plant will replace the RBMK units at LAES, which now produces about 50% of the region’s electricity. LAES-2 will be equipped with the safer, “post-Fukushima” WWER-1200 reactors. LAES is the largest electricity generating facility in Russia’s northwest.

The economic department of the Leningrad administration and Rosatom have already approved the project to mine cryptos at LAES, Drozdenko told RIA Novosti. “What we need for mining is cheap electrical energy, cooling system and reliable transmission grid. We have all that at the Leningrad NPP,” he said.