The new Bitfury development at the top of the North Hill in Starland County is a crucial component in creating what is believed to be North America’s largest bitcoin mining data centre.
     In December, Hut 8 Mining Corp announced it was partnering with Bitfury group to create the data centres.
    Economic Development officer for the Town of Drumheller, Julia Fielding, is excited by the development.
    “It is pretty cool, this is enormous,” she said.  
    “We have people from Drumheller working there and I think what we have to do as a town is see what other opportunities we can use to build on this.”
     Bitfury is a world leader in this technology and will provide Hut 8 a bitcoin mining solution that includes a proprietary mix of hardware software, installation and operation services, according to a press release. Bitfury is the largest bitcoin miner outside of China and holds about 11 per cent of the technology’s market share.
    “This partnership signifies the growing demand for access to Bitcoin investment opportunities across North America,” said Sean Clark, CEO of Hut 8.
    “Bitfury’s market share, unmatched computing power, and ability to scale, in combination with a Board of Directors that former hedge fund manager Michael Novogratz and renowned venture capitalist Bill Tai have both agreed to serve on, offers Hut 8 an extreme advantage in a competitive marketplace.”  
        With this partnership Hut 8 will own and operated the cryptocurrency Mining farm.
    One of the major components for the Bitfury installation is a readily available affordable source of power. Right now Alberta offers this. However, with simple sea-can construction, they are mobile and able to chase low utility rates.
   “The price of electricity is so important to them, “ said Fielding. “This is when the government needs to come in and see what we can do to help these people out.”
   She has discussed the issue with Invest Alberta, and they are aware of the situation.
   She adds that private energy providers are seeing this as an opportunity. The Bitfury installation is located close to a place to tie into the grid, and recently Aura Power held an open house for a solar installation in close proximity to the Bitfury installation.
    “There are people around that see the opportunity,” she said. “A lot of oil and gas companies are thinking of using their excess power.”

Lack of financial oversight has prompted extreme action from Carbon council to put the Carbon Fire Department (CFD) under operational hold status.
This comes after an announcement was made on Tuesday, January 30 from Kneehill County.
Both the Village of Carbon and council members have refused comment on the matter due to FOIP and other legal issues until now.
Carbon Deputy Mayor Bryan Peever announced on behalf of council via Facebook today (Wednesday) on the issue after much online scrutiny from the community.
“Council has had no oversight of the CFD for a considerable amount of time,” began Peever. “Repeated requests to provide information has been ignored. Information requested, and never provided includes qualifications, training, equipment status, call out reports, and reports as required by Bylaw, Standard Operating Guidelines (SOG) and the Kneehill County Fire Agreement.”
Peever spoke with residents seeing a consistent pattern in comments on how the current situation has been handled. Financial liability was one of the main factors in councils decision.
“One of the duties of council is to protect the citizens of Carbon from financial liability. Councillors, if they are aware of issues that could impact the Village and don’t act prudently, can also be held personally liable. Not to act would be unacceptable,” said Peever. “The actions and inactions of the CFD placed the Village of Carbon in an extremely precarious position and forced Council to act.”
Peever explained that even though there is no operational budget currently set for the local fire department, they are considered over budget.
“The Village of Carbon has been forced to pay bills that were not authorized and were not included in the fiscal village budget. Requests to stop, and or explain CFD spending, went unanswered,” said Peever.
The CAO reportedly requested access to this information several times. Members of the CFD and council gathered for a meeting on Wednesday, January 24, where council felt the team understood the requests made. Later that evening a post was made online by one of the members misinterpreting the intent of the meeting.
“Contrary to CFD standard operating guidelines, the CFD made internal issues public and undermined the authority of the Village of Carbon council, CAO, staff and the County of Kneehill,” Peever stated.
Carbon’s fire volunteers and Council will begin working towards a resolution this evening.
“It is anticipated that discussion will begin tonight and resolution should be forthcoming,” said Peever.
Carbon Fire Chief Marty Morgan could not be reached for comment.