Officials in New York steer toward bitcoin mining power plants
ALBANY, NY – Officials in New York refused the required renewal of air permits on Thursday to a bitcoin mining power plant on the grounds that it was a threat to the state’s climate goals.
The permit decision was another example of New York putting the brakes on a cryptocurrency bonanza that has intimidated environmentalists. It also comes at a time when cryptocurrency prices have plummeted, wiped out wealth, fueled skepticism and called for stricter scrutiny.
The state’s permit decision involved Greenidge Generation, an old coal-fired facility on the shores of Seneca Lake that had once been shut down, but which was converted from coal to natural gas several years ago and began in earnest with bitcoin mining in 2020.
A majority of the electricity produced by the plant is now used to power more than 15,000 bitcoin server servers, which consume huge amounts of electricity.
By rejecting the renewals, the state Department of the Environment said the plant’s conversion to a cryptocurrency mining operation meant it created a significant new demand for energy “for a whole new purpose unrelated to the original permit.”
“Instead of helping to meet the current power needs of the state as originally described, the plant operates primarily to meet its own significant new energy load,” the agency said in its letter to the company.
The company said it would continue to operate under its current license while challenging the decision. It said there was “no credible legal basis” for the refusal.
“It is absurd for anyone to look at these facts and rationally claim that renewing this specific permit – for a plant that accounts for a small fraction of the state’s power generation capacity – would hinder New York’s long-term climate goals. It simply would not, “said the company.
Climate activists, who see Greenidge as a test case, had asked Governor Kathy Hochul’s administration to refuse to renew the facility’s air quality permit and block similar projects.
The decision comes as Hochul decides whether to sign a two-year moratorium on new and renewed air permits for fossil fuel power plants used for mining.
Greenidge is not affected by the first moratorium of its kind, which covers new applications.
New York has attracted a number of companies that need cheap energy to run the huge data matrices needed for energy-intensive “proof-of-work” cryptocurrency extraction – a term for the computational process that records and secures transactions in bitcoin and similar forms of digital money.
Greenidge has said that although the plant went at full capacity, its potential emissions correspond to 0.23% of the state’s target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The company claimed that the plant is 100% carbon neutral, thanks to the purchase of carbon compensation, such as forestry programs and projects captures methane from landfills.
Environmentalists were pleased with the rejection.
“Governor Hochul and the DEC stood with science and the people, sending a message to external speculators: New York’s former fossil fuel plants are not yours to reopen as gas-swallowing Bitcoin mining cancer in our communities,” said Yvonne Taylor, vice president of the Seneca Bar Association. Lake Guardian.
