The Litani River Authority has called for action to rein in cryptominers use of its power supply. (Credit: M.A.)
BEIRUT — The Litani River Authority, which operates hydro-electric facilities, on Saturday blamed energy intensive cryptomining for straining its resources and draining electricity.
Here’s what we know:
• In a statement, the public utility, which was founded in 1954, called for “strict measures to remove the infringements from the public [electricity] network, especially from mining devices for cryptocurrencies," the NNA reported.
• The Litani River Authority said that cryptomining was increasing demand on its power provision by 20 percent, or equivalent to 8 megawatts of its production capacity.
• In 2020, the Litani River Authority generated a little under 7 percent of Lebanon’s public electricity, according to Électricité du Liban statistics.
• Cryptomining, or the use of energy intensive set-ups of hardware to conduct complex computations to produce new cryptocoins, has come under increased international attention and criticism for its growing use of electricity.