Proposed Moose Lake crypto mining facility draws questions

MOOSE LAKE — A cryptocurrency mining facility proposed in Moose Lake would generate new revenues for the city and the city-owned power company. But residents have concerns, chief among them the constant hum of fans.

Jeff St. Onge, senior operations manager for Revolve Labs, pledged Tuesday, Jan. 20, his company’s computing complex on 2 acres next to the municipal power station off Highway 73 “will be a minimally impactful operation.”

But at a public hearing before the Moose Lake Water and Light Commission that packed the Soo Line Event Center, several residents were skeptical.

“I’m a big ‘no,’ because too many people like us have been lied to about the noise,” said Lesly Ramey.

The facility, which has not yet received approval from the Moose Lake City Council, would be just the second to be built in Minnesota by Revolve Labs, a Colorado-based builder and operator of data centers for bitcoin mining and artificial intelligence.

“What is a modular bitcoin facility? Simply put, it’s computers in a space, cooled by air, that are performing intense calculations,” St. Onge told the crowd.

Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency — a type of digital money. Revolve Labs does not itself perform crypto mining — the process of solving complex mathematical puzzles to produce cryptocurrency. It provides the needed computing power to other companies.

The Moose Lake proposal is different from most of the controversial artificial intelligence data centers in that it would not require any water consumption to cool the supercomputers, St. Onge said. Instead, industrial fans would cool the portable buildings, which St. Onge said would be about 44 feet long, would number five or six to start and could eventually grow to up to 12 on the site.

The hum of the fans at Revolve Labs’ other Minnesota facility in Glencoe has drawn complaints from at least one set of neighbors, according to news reports cited by multiple public speakers Tuesday.

St. Onge said the closest residences to the proposed site in Moose Lake are approximately 800 to 1,000 feet away, which is farther than in Glencoe. He said a berm, fencing and other sound-mitigation efforts are planned.

St. Onge said the sound level emanating from its Glencoe site is around 55 decibels. He shared readings he said were recently collected in the region of the proposed Moose Lake site that registered between 47 and as high as 80 decibels with trucks at the Kwik Trip gas station.

“You stand out at Kwik Trip at any given day and you’ll be hearing louder noises going by you with the semis coming and going,” said Moose Lake Water and Light Commissioner and City Councilor Doug Juntunen.

Moose Lake Water and Light Commissioner Curt Yort said he also had noise concerns and went to the Glencoe facility. He described the noise level as about equal to when Moose Lake’s own power plant is running.

But residents wanted more certainty around how noise levels would be monitored and limited.

“Where is the accountability piece?” asked Terry Koren.

Speakers also had concerns over reports that the company had withdrawn plans in fall 2024 for a crypto mining facility in Windom and in early 2025 for an AI data center in Mountain Lake.

The crypto mining facility is estimated to consume about 10 megawatts of power to start, more than four times the amount of power consumed by the city of Moose Lake.

“This is going to be separate from the residential and business infrastructure, so it should not negatively impact anything with the current infrastructure or the rates that residents currently have,” St. Onge said.

Revolve Labs would lease land from Moose Lake Power and pay a fee to access its transmission line. But the company would purchase its electricity not from the local power company but directly from MISO — the electric grid operator for the central U.S.

Moose Lake Water and Light commissioners emphasized the potential revenues, which Commissioner Doug Skelton estimated at $300,000 the first year for Moose Lake Power and another $90,000 to the city.

“I see this as a real opportunity for the city of Moose Lake. It brings a few jobs, but it will help the residents — the electric payer — in the long run,” Yort said, adding that the additional funding will help make needed upgrades to the city’s aging power infrastructure.

While a contract is in place between Revolve Labs and Moose Lake Power, City Administrator Ellissa Owens said the City Council would need to approve a lease agreement or development agreement before the proposal could move forward.

Kristine Goodrich is community editor at the Superior Telegram and Cloquet Pine Journal. Reach her at kgoodrich@duluthnews.com or 218-720-4102.