A Manchester official is trying to allay fears about an upcoming cryptocurrency mining operation

Some residents in northeastern Iowa are raising concerns about a cryptocurrency mining company that plans to build a large facility in the area. Their concerns center on resources, i.e. the amount of electricity and water that will be consumed, as well as the noise that each server’s fans could generate.

During this week’s Manchester City Council meeting, City Manager Tim Vick answered a range of questions about the facility to be built in the city’s industrial park.

“What they use is 8-by-20-foot storage units that are modularly configured so they can put server racks and servers in them,” Vick says. “They’re proposing 50 of those buildings. They’ll be installed on concrete pads on a gravel lot, and then each of those server units will have two cooling units.

The project will draw power from a grid separate from the rest of the community, so electricity demand shouldn’t be an issue, Vick says. While many large “server farms” are water-cooled, Vick says this one won’t be.

“The way they’re prepared here, they don’t use a lot of water,” he says. “They’ll only have a bathroom in their office, and that’s what they use the water for, their main office. It won’t be used to cool the servers.”

Simple Mining, based in Cedar Falls, has six locations throughout Iowa. Cryptocurrency mining involves using specialized computers to solve complex mathematical puzzles to create a form of cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin.

Server farms in out-of-state communities have been ridiculed for the amount of noise generated by hundreds of cooling fans all spinning at full speed around the clock. Vick says the City Council will explore this concern through a field trip.

“We’re going to Cedar Falls, where they’re headquartered,” Vick says. “They have a system set up there with Cedar Falls, and we’ll check that out. What we’ve been told is that you can’t really hear the sound from the property, once you get about 100 feet away.”

This is an emerging technology and Vick points out that it represents a new type of industry in the region. “This is a different set of jobs that we have,” he says. “They’ll still pay property taxes, they’ll pay franchise fees, but it’s a different opportunity, and it creates eight full-time jobs, so for us to have new employees, new opportunities, I think that’s beneficial.” To the community “

The project’s site plan was approved by Manchester City Council in late December, and Vick says construction is scheduled to begin later this spring.

(Written by Janelle Tucker, KMCH, Manchester)