Albany, N.Y. — New York officials refused to renew required air permits Thursday for a bitcoin-mining plant because it was a danger to state climate goals.
New York put a halt to a cryptocurrency bonanza, alarming environmentalists. This decision comes at a time cryptocurrency prices are plummeting, causing skepticism, and prompting calls for tighter oversight.
Greenidge Generation was the state’s permit decision. This is an old coal-fired power plant near Seneca Lake. It had been previously shut down but was converted to natural gas many years ago. In 2020, it began bitcoin mining.
The majority of the electricity generated by the plant is used to power more than 15,000 computers for bitcoin mining. This consumes huge amounts of electricity.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation rejected the renewals. It stated that the plant’s conversion into a cryptocurrency mining operation meant there was a significant new demand of energy, “for a wholly different purpose than its original permit.”
The agency wrote to the company that the facility was not operating to supply electricity to the state, as it had been originally stated.
While it challenged the decision, the company stated that it would continue to operate under its current permit. The company claimed that there was no legal basis for denial.
It is absurd to think that anyone would renew a permit for a facility that only a fraction of New York’s electricity generation capacity could be justified. The company stated that it simply wouldn’t.
Greenidge is a test case for climate activists. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration denied renewal of the plant’s air quality permit, and blocked similar projects.
Hochul will decide whether to sign into law a 2-year moratorium on renewals of air permits for fossil fuel power plant used for proof-of work mining.
Greenidge will not be affected by the moratorium, which applies to new applications.
New York is home to many companies that require low-cost energy to operate the massive computer arrays required for “proof-of work” cryptocurrency mining. This term refers to the computational process that records transactions in bitcoin or similar digital currencies and then secures them.
Greenidge stated that even at full capacity, the plant’s potential emissions would equal 0.2% of the state’s greenhouse gas emission reduction goal for 2030. Greenidge claimed that the plant is carbon neutral because it has been purchased carbon offsets such as forestry programs or projects that capture methane in landfills.
The denial was a big win for environmentalists.
“Governor Hochul, the DEC stood by science and people, and sent a signal to outside speculators, New York’s ex-fossil fuel-burning plants were not yours to reopen as gas-guzzling Bitcoin miner cancers on our community,” stated Yvonne Taylor (Vice President of Seneca Lake Guardian).
