A bitcoin business is polluting Seneca Lake, say critics. Here's how.

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“The lake is so warm you feel like you’re in a hot tub,” said a woman who lives near a gas-fired New York plant that powers 8,000 computers mining Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency — a digital form of money with no actual bills or coins."Mining" it, a way of earning it, requires massive high-performance computers. The computers earn small rewards of bitcoin by verifying transactions in the currency that occur on the internet around the world. The math required to verify the transactions and earn bitcoins gets more complex all the time and demands more and more computer power.

In a report last fall, the Environmental Assessment Office, a provincial agency, said the project failed to comply on 16 of 17 items inspected. As a result,to hire an independent auditor to monitor its work to prevent site runoff that can pollute streams and harm fish. Because private equity firms are secretive, their investors may not know what they own or the risks, said Alyssa Giachino of the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit organization that examines the industry's impact on communities. She said pension funds and their beneficiaries may end up with more fossil fuel exposure than they realize and may not have a full appreciation of the risks.

Private equity investors sometimes"leave behind messes for someone else to clean up," said Clark Williams-Derry, energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis."The real trouble happens when the private equity firm comes in and is just trying to strip mine the company and the workers for whatever they're worth," he said.

Atlas bought the 150-acre coal-fired Greenidge plant in 2014, three years after it had closed. Converted to natural gas, the almost 80-year-old plant began operations in 2017, generating energy to the grid only at times of high demand. "These crypto operations are looking for anywhere that has relatively cheap power in a relatively cool climate," said Yvonne Taylor, vice president of Seneca Lake Guardian, a nonprofit conservation advocacy."It's a horrible business model for all of New York state, the United States and for the planet."

"We've asked the Department of Environmental Conservation to take a hard look and think about it as a new permit, not just a renewal," DeRoche said. "New York had established a goal in law of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030," Enck said."The state will not reach that goal if the Greenidge Bitcoin mining operation continues."Maureen Wren, a spokeswoman for the Department of Environmental Conservation, or DEC, said in a statement that it is closely monitoring Greenidge.

 

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Might you send a journalist to take lake temps and do some on-site investigation, or is this just another Deep State hit job? That’s what I thought…

Sounds like mining is offsetting costs. Why didn’t the residents construct green energy? Let the consumers pay for the upkeep of the plant if they don’t want to run it at capacity. Or turn it off and let people generate their own power?

She has free warm baths everyday 😉 what's she complaining

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Please, try swimming down the river from the nuclear power plant. Classic northerners. samdavis038

Shut them down!

The fact that millionaires and billionaires and corporations are buying and starting up shuttered gas and coal plants to mine Bitcoin is something that needs to be regulated and shut down.

I mean, I guess the silver lining is that there's only about 1.5 million tokens left to mine before it's all done. Not much consolation for the environment, though.

if Bitcoin was good for the government, the government would back this as much as they could..... but since it is freedom, whoever is against such a motion, is going to go all psycho on this..... yada yada yada...

Posted as 'news' for the 5th straight day. Fresh content, PLEASE...

Don’t tell them about bp_America🤦🏼‍♀️

When is America's EPA going to get their balls back?

MSM acting like they know anything about crypto.. Acting like 8000 computers is alot and heating up a lake. lol

Graphic cards against humanity

This headline is a total exaggeration. The lake is not that warm. It’s over 60 sq miles and has an average depth of 300 feet. GTFO.

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