In January 2022, a series of police raids disrupted the early morning peace of several villages in Lebanon’s mountainous Chouf region. Conducted in cooperation with the Litani River Authority (LRA), a regional utility responsible for generating much of the area’s electricity, the target of the raids was crypto miners. So many of them had set up in the Chouf that they had started to destabilize the local grid. 

The reason that the miners had congregated in the idyllic Chouf region was simple: electricity. The specialized computers that miners use require large amounts of power to run and, at least on paper, Lebanon has some of the cheapest electricity in the world. Today, however, that fact is largely academic. After decades of what the World Bank has called “colossal failures,” and two years of hyperinflation, the state-owned power supplier Électricité du Liban (EDL) has collapsed, and little electricity is generated or delivered in most of the country. Those who can afford it pay a subscription to an expensive, privately run diesel generator. Those who can’t must live with rolling blackouts of more than 20 hours a day. 

Except, that is, in the Chouf. Here, as part of a mandate which also includes irrigation, drinking water provision, and local economic development around its namesake river, the LRA runs three antiquated hydro-power stations. These provide 20 hours of electricity per day to around 200 villages in the vicinity. That has made…