Citing Climate Concerns, New York Denies Permit to Bitcoin Mining Plant (nbcnews.com) 27
An anonymous reader shares this report from NBC News:
A controversial bitcoin mining operation on the largest of central New York's Finger Lakes does not meet the requirements of state climate laws, New York's Department of Environmental Conservation ruled Thursday, denying an air permit request the entity's owner, Greenidge Generation LLC., made in March 2021.
Renewing the air permit for the Greenidge facility on Seneca Lake "would be inconsistent with or would interfere with the attainment of statewide greenhouse gas emission limits," the Department of Environmental Conservation, or DEC, said in its ruling. It added that the company, which burns natural gas at its plant, has "failed to demonstrate that the continued operation of the facility is justified notwithstanding this inconsistency, as it has not provided any electric system reliability or other ongoing need for the facility." Greenhouse gas emissions from the plant have increased "dramatically" since a previous permit was issued to Greenidge in 2016 and after the 2019 enactment of New York's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, DEC said.
Local residents and environmental groups lauded the decision. Greenidge said it would continue to operate the plant under its current permit while it challenged the DEC ruling....
Greenidge took over a mothballed power plant on the shores of Seneca Lake in 2014 and requested permits to operate it as a so-called peaker plant, providing electricity to the grid in times of heavy use. While the operation initially supplied most of its power to the grid, DEC found its main purpose has become bitcoin mining.
The article adds that the global usage of electricity for bitcoin mining "roughly equals the consumption of Pakistan, according to the University of Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index."
Renewing the air permit for the Greenidge facility on Seneca Lake "would be inconsistent with or would interfere with the attainment of statewide greenhouse gas emission limits," the Department of Environmental Conservation, or DEC, said in its ruling. It added that the company, which burns natural gas at its plant, has "failed to demonstrate that the continued operation of the facility is justified notwithstanding this inconsistency, as it has not provided any electric system reliability or other ongoing need for the facility." Greenhouse gas emissions from the plant have increased "dramatically" since a previous permit was issued to Greenidge in 2016 and after the 2019 enactment of New York's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, DEC said.
Local residents and environmental groups lauded the decision. Greenidge said it would continue to operate the plant under its current permit while it challenged the DEC ruling....
Greenidge took over a mothballed power plant on the shores of Seneca Lake in 2014 and requested permits to operate it as a so-called peaker plant, providing electricity to the grid in times of heavy use. While the operation initially supplied most of its power to the grid, DEC found its main purpose has become bitcoin mining.
The article adds that the global usage of electricity for bitcoin mining "roughly equals the consumption of Pakistan, according to the University of Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index."
The audacity! (Score:5, Insightful)
The company added that its "facility represents a remarkably insignificant 0.2% of New York’s target GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions level for 2030"
With a straight face they admit their business alone is responsible for 1/500th of the entire State's target emissions, and say it is "remarkably insignificant"! 1/500th of the entire State's quote on a SINGLE business that produces NOTHING! How are they even permitted to continue - there are no details on the article but it seems originally they had permits to run the plant for peak power generation.
Re:The audacity! (Score:4, Interesting)
This reminds me of the time I was in Las Vegas over the July 4th holiday a long while back. I was watching the local news in the morning and found out there were some localized brownouts due to the heat (temps were around 110 - 115 F the previous day).
The spokesperson for the casino industry had a short clip wherein he said not to blame the casinos for electricity woes as they've done their part to reduce consumption.
"Except for the 1 million light bulbs on the Strip burning 24 hours a day," I say to myself. "Or the casinos which don't have doors at street level but instead use air curtains which allow vast amounts of cooled air to flood into the street."
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It doesn't produce Wealth, and no, that's not the job of all Companies. It's certainly not the job of any Finance Company. Their job is to facilitate the movement of Wealth, and help it get where it's needed. They are like the oil in an engine. Nobody would claim that the oil produces energy, but that doesn't stop it being a vital part of an engine.
However, as CryptoCurrency is just a substandard version of real currency it can't even claim that use. It replicates, very badly, the functions that real curren
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The real problem is crypto is getting so big but it risks bleeding over into the real economy. Wall Street has been dabbling in it for some time and they're starting to make the equivalent of mortgaged backed securities where the underlining investment is crypto.
I keep saying this b
Lie on the application, get denied. (Score:5, Insightful)
This won't stop them from whining about fascist environmentalists and their job-killing agenda anyway; but "blatantly lied on the application" is a pretty solid reason to deny anything that needs to be applied for.
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I'm assuming that since the power plant in question is an older coal fired plant converted to natural gas, that it is a boiled water driving a steam turbine, which would need to be at operating temperature, prior to need.
Whether it is at spinning reserve throwing electricity into a dummy load or a bitcoin mine is what this is really about.
Greenidge claimed carbon neutral ... by 2035 (Score:2)
Greenidge made a lot of misleading claims which one would not find the truth until one reads the fine print.
Good thing the people of NY didn't listen to Greenidge and waited. '(Greenidge) it plans to be a âoezero-carbon emitting power generation facilityâ by 2035. The company also plans to appeal the denial of its air permits and remain operational.'
"Spare Capacity" (Score:5, Interesting)
This reminds me so much of the fights I used to have as a system's architect where "The business" had signed off on a system with sufficient failover capacity, to then try to "Make use of" all the failover hardware because "It wasn't doing anything anyway", and they could "save money".
That... Was NOT the design, not the contract with the datacenter, not the contract with the fiber company, and generally a really stupid idea.
In this case: Get a license to run something on demand, in a limited capacity, but then decide/realize that if you run it at max all the time you can make more money and you just need to find some idiot that will suck up all your power. Tada: Enter bitcoin scam company.
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As such, almost anything can be regulated out of existence under the aegis of lowering energy consumption.
No, the Republican Supreme Court will decide what regulations are the good ones.
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"No, the Republican Supreme Court will decide what regulations are the good ones."
Almost; I'll fix it for you, No, the Republican Supreme Court will decide what regulations are consistent with the written and specific intent of Congress."
Anything beyond the specific law is a bureaucratic power grab by people who are unelected and unaccountable to the people they are supposed to serve.
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Don't be so childishly pedantic: Congress endowed these agencies with the authority to take on these tasks because Congress, as a whole, doesn't know shit about the nuances that make up the majority of the rules. Same as Congressional committees: not every Congressperson will be a tax law expert.
Not sure it matters much (Score:2)
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As predicted by everybody with any common sense the bubble has burst and fools and lost out to the scammers.
Go solar (Score:1)
Used or slightly damaged panels are basically free and DC down conversion is cheap and efficient. The rest is software.
Just sue New York, take it to the Supreme Court (Score:2)
New York needs nuclear fission power. (Score:1)
The problem is that New York is so reliant on natural gas to keep the lights on that they've had to keep an eye out for people that would scam the regulations for cheap electricity. How did New York get so reliant on natural gas? By putting in regulations that favored unreliable renewable energy. If the goal is to lower CO2 emissions from electricity production then New York is doing it wrong.
What is the electricity source with the lowest CO2 emissions?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Link above take you