On Why Lukashenka's Cryptocurrency Plan Doomed To Fail

Will common Belarusians have to pay for the mining?

The Ministry of Energy is preparing for technical negotiations with Russia on building a second nuclear power plant in Belarus. To discuss exactly how much money Russia owes for it. It is not clear whether the Russian authorities are aware that they want to give money for the second nuclear power plant in Belarus. But that's not the point. The main thing is that the Belarusian authorities have finally figured out where to dispose of the excess electricity.

‘This topic is being discussed very closely at the moment at the highest level and now preparations are underway to hold technical negotiations on what parameters, what cost, on what terms the realisation of this facility is possible,’ said new Energy Minister Dzianis Maroz, appointed on Monday.

The cost is the key issue here. The Belarusian authorities have not just been running around with the idea of building a second nuclear power plant for years. More than four billion dollars remained unspent from the first NPP. And the Belarusian authorities, of course, would like to spend them very much.

Moreover, as Lukashenka explained, he is even ready to make a discount to the ally. In an allied way. If the ally is greedy to give money for building a new nuclear power plant, then one more unit at the existing plant is enough. Because the loan for the existing plant has to be repaid, and there is no better way to repay the old loan than to take a new one.

However, there was a small problem with the idea of building a second NPP in Belarus. Even the electricity from the first NPP is superfluous in Belarus. Therefore, before building the second one, it was necessary to come up with a convincing explanation where the Belarusian authorities are going to utilise this electricity.

Conversion of houses to electric heating and mass transfer of Belarusians to electric cars did not work as an explanation. Neither electric boilers nor electric cars are available in Belarus in commercial quantities to justify another nuclear power plant.

But if you really want money, you can always find a way out. The new idea is to mine bitcoins in Belarus. That is, to spend extra electricity for mining, not natural, but promising resources.

A week ago, Aliaksandr Lukashenka approved the idea to build mining farms in Mahiliou region.

‘We have good sites in Mahiliou region with energy capacities, everything necessary to build data centres, mining farms. The go-ahead has been received. We're preparing these sites to hold tenders, so that the investor could come in and do the construction,’ said the governor of the region, Anatol Isachenka.

The Belarusian authorities want to lure investors with special preferences. And it's not just tax benefits. It's also preferential rates for electricity. Since we have a lot of electricity, we have nowhere to use it, and without the second NPP, Russia will not give a loan for constructing the second NPP.

However, there is a small problem with the price of electricity. Bitcoin mining makes sense where electricity is cheap. And the Belarusian nuclear electricity, taking into account all payments on loans, costs one and a half times more expensive than the usual one. That is, someone will have to pay for the favourable tariffs for investors in mining farms. Cross-subsidisation mechanisms make it possible to do this without anyone noticing. And the authorities will probably decide on who will pay - the enterprises or the population - later.

After all, you may not get rich from mining cryptocurrencies. And with a Russian credit - for some time - quite well. After all, the most important thing in the nuclear power industry is to get money from Russia for the nuclear power industry.

Andrei Branisheuski, planbmedia.io

You can support the website Charter97.org

MULTI-CURRENCY ACCOUNT FOR ASSISTANCE:

Bank's name: Bank Millennium S.A.
Address: ul. Stanislawa Zaryna, 2A, 02-593, Warszawa
IBAN: PL97116022020000000216711123
SWIFT: BIGBPLPW
Name of the account holder: Fundacja “KARTA ‘97”
Purpose/title of payment: Donation for statuary aims

You can contact us by the e-mail charter97@gmail.com