New York businesses request governor to deny crypto mining permits

The environmental impact of crypto mining continues to be a concern for regulators and businesses.
A group of local businesses has asked the New York State Governor Kathy Hochul to deny permits for the conversion of city’s old fossil fuel power plants into crypto mining centres. The request comes in the form of a letter cosigned by a number of organizations, businesses and labor groups.The letter calls for an environmental assessment for Proof-of-Work cryptocurrency mining in NYS while urging Governor Hochul to deny permits to convert the Greenidge Generating Station and the Fortistar North Tonawanda power plants into crypto mining facilities:”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.”The proposal highlighted the inefficiencies of PoW authentication and suggests that repowering defunct fossil-fueled power plants would be “seriously jeopardizing the state’s progress on and meeting mandates for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.”The businesses also quoted NYS Commissioner Basil Seggos of the Department of Environmental Conservation saying that “Greenidge has not shown compliance with New York’s climate law.”NYS is taking action on #ClimateChange. Today, @NYSDEC released draft air permits for Greenidge LLC, a former coal plant that was converted to a bitcoin mine. DEC has not made a final determination on the permits and Greenidge has not shown compliance with NY’s climate law./1 pic.twitter.com/PKozYCUIeQ– Basil Seggos (@BasilSeggos) September 8, 2021

The letter demands Hochul’s administration cancel the Title V Air Permits for two fossil-fuel facilities. Related: Russia considers new tariffs as Chinese crypto-miners relocate According to the study, Bitcoin’s (BTC) energy consumption will remain below 0.5% of the global total over the next decade. This is due to fluctuations in Bitcoin’s price, mining difficulty, and energy consumption.

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