Bearing in mind crypto mining’s environmental impact, some local businesses in New York have petitioned the Governor to deny permits for the conversion of the city’s outdated fossil-fuel power stations into crypto mining centres.
A coalition of local companies has petitioned New York State Governor Kathy Hochul to deny permits for the conversion of the city’s outdated fossil-fuel power stations into crypto mining centres.
The request is made in the form of a letter signed by representatives from a variety of organizations, enterprises, and labour unions.
The letter requests an environmental review for Proof-of tation and Fortistar North Tonawanda power plants into crypto mining operations:
“Proof-of-Work cryptocurrency mining use enormous amounts of energy to power the computers needed to conduct business – should this activity expand in New York, it could drastically undermine New York’s climate goals established under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.”
Repowering decommissioned fossil-fueled power plants would “seriously jeopardize the state’s progress on and satisfying obligations for decreasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions,” according to the proposal, which highlighted the inefficiencies of PoW authentication.
“Greenidge has not proved compliance with New York’s climate law,” said NYS Commissioner Basil Seggos of the Department of Environmental Conservation, according to the businesses.
The letter asks that Hochul’s office deny the Title V Air Permits for the two fossil-fuel facilities, citing the need for a complete environmental study relating to greenhouse gas emissions.
On the other side of the globe, Russian officials are seeking to impose special electricity charges on Chinese cryptocurrency miners who have lately been evicted.
On October 13, Russian Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov proposed a new energy consumption framework that would distinguish pricing for public use and bitcoin mining, saying:
“We can’t let miners capitalize on the situation at the expense of low residential electricity tariffs.”
Bitcoin’s (BTC) energy consumption will remain below 0.5 per cent of the global total for the next decade, according to a study undertaken by the New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG).
The study also shows that Bitcoin’s carbon footprint will be influenced by price changes, mining difficulty, and energy use.
