{"id":14392,"date":"2023-01-20T17:57:51","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T17:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2023\/01\/20\/new-york-faces-a-new-legal-fight-over-a-proposed-crypto-mining-power-plant\/"},"modified":"2023-01-20T17:57:51","modified_gmt":"2023-01-20T17:57:51","slug":"new-york-faces-a-new-legal-fight-over-a-proposed-crypto-mining-power-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2023\/01\/20\/new-york-faces-a-new-legal-fight-over-a-proposed-crypto-mining-power-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"New York faces a new legal fight over a proposed crypto-mining power plant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Environmental groups are pushing New York state to scrutinize a crypto mining company\u2019s purchase of a gas-fired power plant, contending in a new lawsuit that turning the power plant into a crypto mine would go against the state\u2019s climate goals and dump more pollution on nearby neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Sierra Club and the Clean Air Coalition of Western New York filed a suit<\/a> on Friday that challenges the New York Public Service Commission\u2019s (PSC) approval of the sale. Under state law, the commission has to give the green light before the transfer of ownership of a power plant can take place. Until now, the commission has mostly focused on whether such a sale would affect residents\u2019 electricity rates or create a monopoly. The commission needs to start taking climate change and environmental injustice into consideration because of a sweeping climate law passed in 2019, the new lawsuit argues.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe law says you can\u2019t just ignore these really serious consequences\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe law says you can\u2019t just ignore these really serious consequences,\u201d says Dror Ladin, senior attorney at Earthjustice, the nonprofit environmental law group representing the plaintiffs. \u201cRunning the plant 24 hours a day to mine crypto is going to be very bad both for the climate and for and for people in the area.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The power plant, called Fortistar, is in the small city of North Tonawanda, located between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. Typically, Fortistar is used as a so-called \u201cpeaker plant,\u201d firing up infrequently to meet peak electricity demand during an energy crunch. The plant has only been in operation between 10 and 25 days a year since 2017, according to Environmental Protection Agency records cited in the complaint. That schedule is expected to change drastically if Canadian crypto mining company Digihost moves in, which is why some residents are worried about their potential new neighbor. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Digihost petitioned the PSC to approve the purchase of Fortistar back in April 2021. It planned to run the plant \u201c24\/7\u201d to power its crypto mining rigs, according to an environmental assessment form the company filed to North Tonawanda later that year. Crypto companies burn through enormous amounts of electricity to mine Bitcoin, more than many small countries use in a single year<\/a>. To validate new transactions on Bitcoin\u2019s blockchain and earn new tokens in return, \u201cminers\u201d have to solve difficult computational puzzles using specialized hardware. The more hardware you have and energy you use, the better your chances of earning new tokens. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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That happens to produce a lot of pollution in the process \u2014 especially for operations that get all their electricity from a gas-fired plant like Fortistar. So some nearby residents worry that if Fortistar starts running 24\/7, that would increase its environmental footprint.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cMy oldest son has asthma and I worry about how the pollution will affect him,\u201d one resident who lives about a quarter mile from the gas plant writes in an affidavit accompanying the environmental groups\u2019 complaint. \u201cI have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and I\u2019m also worried that increased pollution will worsen my condition.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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New York also has its climate goals<\/a> to consider. The state has committed to slashing its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 85 percent by 2050. To achieve that goal, the climate law it passed in 2019 mandates that state agencies consider whether its decisions would endanger those goals or disproportionately burden \u201cdisadvantaged communities.\u201d While the state is still finalizing criteria for what makes a community \u201cdisadvantaged,\u201d some census tracts near Fortistar have already been found to cope with more pollution than 90 percent of the state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nevertheless, New York\u2019s Public Service Commission approved Digihost\u2019s petition to purchase the plant in September 2022. \u201cWhile numerous commenters raise significant environmental concerns … these matters are beyond the scope of the limited review undertaken in this proceeding,\u201d the PSC wrote in its decision<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The suit filed Friday is the first to push the PSC to broaden the scope of its decision-making, citing New York\u2019s climate law. If the environmental groups are successful, the commission would have to rethink its approval of Digihost\u2019s planned takeover of the plant. At that point, Digihost could have a tough time convincing the state that its new crypto mine wouldn\u2019t imperil climate goals. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In a similar fight over a crypto-mining power plant in New York called Greenidge, the state\u2019s Department of Conservation denied<\/a> air permits because its operations \u201cwould be inconsistent with the statewide greenhouse gas emission limits established in the Climate Act.\u201d In November, Governor Kathy Hochul signed a two-year moratorium<\/a> on new permits for fossil fuel power plants seeking to mine Bitcoin. That gives the state time to conduct an environmental impact review of crypto mining more broadly. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Both Greenidge and Fortisar are excluded from that moratorium because they had applied for air permits before the law was passed. Greenidge is still up and running as it appeals the state\u2019s decision on its air permit. But environmental advocates are optimistic they might be able to keep a crypto mine at Fortistar from getting off the ground at all. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Neither Digihost nor Fortistar responded to a request for comment from The Verge, <\/em>while the PSC said in an email that it doesn\u2019t comment on pending litigation. Digihost, of course, still has to contend with the ongoing crypto winter<\/a> that\u2019s made it less profitable to mine Bitcoin. But in a January press release<\/a>, the company touted a 60 percent year-on-year increase of its Bitcoin production in 2022. The announcement also says that Digihost has already installed \u201cmining infrastructure\u201d at North Tonawanda and \u201cexpects the acquisition to close\u201d during the first quarter of 2023. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Environmental groups are pushing New York state to scrutinize a crypto mining company\u2019s purchase of a gas-fired power plant, contending in a new lawsuit that turning the power plant into a crypto mine would go against the state\u2019s climate goals and dump more pollution on nearby neighborhoods. Sierra Club and the Clean Air Coalition of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14393,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,32,41,26,33],"tags":[138],"class_list":["post-14392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-environment","category-health","category-nasa","category-science","category-space","tag-climate-environment-science"],"yoast_head":"\nNew York faces a new legal fight over a proposed crypto-mining power plant - Science and Nerds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2023\/01\/20\/new-york-faces-a-new-legal-fight-over-a-proposed-crypto-mining-power-plant\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New York faces a new legal fight over a proposed crypto-mining power plant - Science and Nerds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Environmental groups are pushing New York state to scrutinize a crypto mining company\u2019s purchase of a gas-fired power plant, contending in a new lawsuit that turning the power plant into a crypto mine would go against the state\u2019s climate goals and dump more pollution on nearby neighborhoods. 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