# Kristal Farms — Overview

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"A cold-climate, hydro-powered compute and heat-reuse infrastructure: modular compute pads, exported by fiber, with waste heat recycled into local heating and food production.",

# Kristal Farms — Overview

Kristal Farms is a **cold-climate, hydro-powered compute infrastructure** designed to deliver two things at once:

1. **Compute capacity** (hosted in modular “pads”), exported by high-quality fiber.
2. **Local community benefits**, by turning server waste heat into **building heating** and **greenhouse food production**.

## What makes it different

The core move is simple: **put the compute in the village near heat users**, not far away near the power source. Instead of building long transmission lines, the project uses local hydro on site and converts waste heat into something useful. Tenants lease **black-box compute pads** (power, cooling, fiber provided), while the village gains low-cost heat and improved connectivity.

## Outcomes (what the village gets)

- **Lower-cost heat** for public buildings first (and then homes), with a “heat-first” operating rule.
- **Greenhouse capability** powered by recycled heat (food resilience and local jobs).
- **Better connectivity**: fiber infrastructure that can also serve local institutions.
- **Transparent reporting** through a public dashboard of outcomes (energy, heat, reliability, community benefit).

## Operating model (what tenants get)

- A strict **black-box tenancy model**: the host can monitor infrastructure health, but cannot inspect tenant data or internal operations.
- Clear operating constraints: heat-first rules and environmental compliance are part of the deal.

## How it works (high level)

1. **Local hydro powers the site** using a short connection to a village substation (avoiding long new transmission corridors).
2. **Compute runs in modular pads** (tenants bring hardware/software; the site provides the utilities).
3. **Waste heat is captured** and routed to local heat sinks (public buildings first, then homes, plus greenhouse and thermal storage).
4. **Work is exported by fiber** with monitoring focused on availability/latency and separation between tenant traffic and community traffic.

## Heat-first rule

The operating priority is:

**reuse → store → reject**, with community heating prioritized.

## Tenancy boundary

The host provides utilities and physical security **up to the pad boundary**, and monitors only infrastructure metrics—not tenant content.

## What gets measured

PUE, WUE (~0 by design), useful heat delivered, HUF, diesel avoided, and uptime/occupancy (plus network and community benefit indicators).

## Governance (so “benefit” is enforceable)

- **Project Council** (overall strategy and dispute resolution)
- **Heat Committee** (seasonal heat priorities, HUF review)
- **Environment Committee** (environmental compliance and incident review)
- **Kristals Council** (public-interest knowledge commons program, topic selection, validation)

## Phasing

Phase 1 proves the basics: compute running, useful heat flowing, data exported by fiber; with thermal storage and greenhouse readiness.

Scaling happens only after go/no-go criteria are met (reliable fiber, safe commissioned power, functioning heat reuse, signed agreements, seated governance, and a public dashboard).

## Next pages