I think he's exaggerating here, but there are definitely examples where people especially in China have setup huge operations with the help of local officials w

I think he's exaggerating here, but there are definitely examples where people especially in China have setup huge operations with the help of local officials who give them sweetheart deals on the electricity prices -- seems likely that the officials helping this happen may get some sort of benefit from this arrangement, but not sure if that has actually been reported or just assumed. In Washington state there were a number of bitcoin operations that started in areas with low cost power that promised to bring jobs to the area and my understanding was that the local power company often did upgrades to lines and substations to accommodate the added power needs -- the local taxpayers definitely would either pay for that capital cost or pay the additional maintenance costs down the road.