A local businesses group has asked Kathy Hochul (the Governor of New York) to reject the permits for transferring the power plants of old fossil fuel to the mining centers for cryptocurrency. The request has been submitted in a letter form which was jointly signed by several businesses, labor groups, and organizations. The letter demands an environmental evaluation of the crypto mining within the New York State as well as pushing the Governor to reject the conversion of the Fortistar North Tonawanda and Greenidge Generating Station power plants in the facility centers for crypto mining.
The letter stated that the mining of Proof-of-Work cryptocurrency utilizes energy in large amounts to run the computers required by the businesses to be conducted. It added that after the expansion of such types of operations across New York, some drastic impacts would be put on the climate targets of the state, which have been developed according to the Act dealing with Climate Leadership and Community Protection. It has been brought out by the proposal that PoW authentication is inefficient, suggesting that the reestablishment of the power plants which are related to fossil fuel would be highly manipulative in the scenario of the further progress of the state as well as its capabilities in meeting its mandates for minimizing the GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions.
The respective businesses also highlighted the saying of Basil Seggos (the NYS Commissioner under the Department of Environmental Conservation), explaining that no compliance has been shown by Greenidge with the climate law of New York. Along with referring towards the requirement for a comprehensive assessment regarding the emissions of greenhouse gas, the respective letter demands the administration of Hochul to refute the permits being applied for by crypto businesses to avail the facility of the two above mentioned fossil-fuel plants.
On the contrary, planning is being carried out by the Russian authorities to issue unique electricity tariffs to facilitate the crypto miners who have recently been displaced from China. On 13th October, Nikolai Shuginov (the Energy Minister of Russia) recommended a new framework for energy consumption to bifurcate tariffs among crypto mining and general usage. As per the research that the NYDIG (New York Digital Investment Group) conducted, the energy consumption by BTC (Bitcoin) will remain lower than 0.5% out of the global total during the upcoming decade.
