Hydro Quebec, the Canadian electricity supplier, is turning away digital currency miners who are looking to set up in the province. In recent times there has been an avalanche of requests from miners, including from giants in the industry such as Bitmain.

With government crackdowns in China and potential troubles ahead in South Korea, large cryptocurrency companies are now looking for pastures new, in places where there are low power costs and an energy surplus. Despite Canada being seen as prime potential territory, it turns out its energy surplus isn\'t quite enough.

Hydro Quebec might not be able to meet the demand of the growing industry, despite claims that it has an energy surplus of 100 terawatt hours (over a period of 10 years). To put this into context, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash usage comes to an annual of 31 terawatt-hours. Put simply, if all the applications from bitcoin mining companies were to be successful, Canada wouldn\'t be able to generate enough power to meet demand.

For the last two years, Hydro Quebec has been seeking new data centres in order to create new jobs, and mining operators fell into that category. With the latest energy consumption estimates and the lack of ready-to-go buildings for such operations, the tide has perhaps turned against Canada as a brave new world for bitcoin mining.