Leading Bitcoin mining company Riot Blockchain announced its plans to expand its operations, via a press release. The expansion will allow the public company to increase its mining and hosting capabilities in different stages in the Navarro Country, Texas, the United States.

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The company is expected to develop a 1.7-Gigawatt (GW) capacity. This will make Riot one of the largest Bitcoin mining companies in the world, according to the press release.

In its first development stage, Riot will build a 400 megawatts capacity across a 265-acre site. These Bitcoin mining efforts will be supported by an “immersion-cooled mining and hosting” operation and will be inaugurated by mid-2023.

In that sense, the company will buy land and begin other preparations to launch the first of its development capacity. These preparations included substation development, transmission, and ancillary building construction.

The latter contemplates the creation of specific buildings that will host the immersion-cooled Bitcoin mining operation. Data provided by Riot indicates that the total cost of this first development phase stands at $333 million.

The company expects to make this investment throughout 2022, 2023, and the first part of 2023. Once this first phase of expansion is completed, the operation will be expandable by as much as 1 GW. Jason Les, CEO of Riot, said:

This Expansion is a testament to the Company’s demonstrated ability to build and deliver high-quality large-scale digital asset infrastructure for its Bitcoin mining operations and future hosted clients. Riot’s ability to source such a significant expansion opportunity in Texas exemplifies the Company’s partnership-driven approach with all stakeholders, including the Company’s business partners, ERCOT, and all levels of government, to commit to sustainable economic development.

Bitcoin, The Most Sustainable Industry In The World

The Bitcoin mining operation expansion will be supported by Priority Power. One of Riot’s key partners, this company is an energy services provider and will aid in the site development, and other core aspects of the development.

Over 270 direct jobs are expected to be created as a result of this expansion. Chad Harris, CEO of Whinstone, one of Riot’s subsidiaries said the following about the expansion plans and how the Bitcoin mining industry can have a positive impact on the local community:

This Expansion is a key example of the positive environmental, societal, and economic impacts that Bitcoin mining brings to under-developed regions in America,” said Chad Harris, CEO of Whinstone, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Riot.

As Bitcoinist reported yesterday, the BTC mining industry is one of the most sustainable in the world, per data provided by the Bitcoin Mining Counsel. The sector’s energy consumption stands at 247 Terawatt per hour (TWh) with a 64% rate in its sustainable power mix.

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At the time of writing, BTC’s price trades at $39,100 with a 3% profit in the last 24-hours.