After Front Page Buff News Expose, Locals & Experts Demand Gov. Protect WNY, Not Climate-Killing Crypto Mine

NORTH TONAWANDA, NY (09/07/2023) (readMedia)-- After a front page story in the Buffalo News exposed the false promises made by Digihost/Fortistar, North Tonawandans and experts are urging Governor Hochul and her administration to swiftly act on the climate killing crypto-mine's air permit renewal. The out-of-state company promised the local community that there would be new jobs, no noise, and sustainable practices – none of which have come to fruition. Instead, locals hear constant noise from the plant while it ramps up to generate more than carbon emissions equivalent to 66,000 cars on the road – while the rest of the state focuses on reducing emissions in order to meet the mandates of NYS's climate law.

The operation applied for a renewal of its air permit more than two years ago, and advocates are demanding the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation protect North Tonawanda and the climate by following the precedent it set when it denied crypto-miner Greenidge Generation's air permit in June 2022.

Watch the press conference here.

"Digihost claims to be part of the climate solution, yet they plan to emit more than 300,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions every year, equivalent to 66,000 cars on the road and nearly 5x the plant's total emissions for the past five years combined. The North Tonawanda community cannot afford another major polluter. Governor Hochul and her administration must begin the public process of reviewing Digihost's permit application, and swiftly deny Digihost's air permit," said Jessamine De Ocampo, Associate Attorney, Clean Energy Program, Earthjustice.

"The City of North Tonawanda needs to understand where the clean air permit stands with the DEC. We have future prospects of development in the area around Fortistar and the uncertainty with the DEC's decision makes it difficult for us to move forward," said North Tonawanda Mayor Austin Tylec.

"As a member of the North Tonawanda Climate Smart task force, we take NYS's climate goals seriously and have put a lot of effort into reducing GHG emissions in our city. For every step forward we take in reducing GHG through lighting and other energy-efficiency projects, Digihost's bitcoin operation sets us back several steps," said Deborah Gondek, North Tonawanda resident and member of the NT Climate Smart Task Force. "We need the DEC to act and act now. It's been almost 2 years since the permit expired. Governor Hochul and the DEC must open up the permit review process and deny Digihost's air permit renewal."

"Residents continue to be plagued by noise and increased pollution, and worry about the potential exponential increase in air emissions. To meet the benchmark goals of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, as well as protect the health and wellbeing of residents, we must work to rein in our use of fossil fuels and towards a Just Transition. Proof-of-Work based Bitcoin Mining runs directly counter to this," said Bridge Rauch, Environmental Justice Organizer, Clean Air Coalition of Western NY.

Clean Air Coalition of WNY is launching a letter campaign to support these residents and urge the Governor and Department of Environmental Conservation to bring the air permit for public comment: bit.ly/NTDigihostTitleV.

"I live one-third of a mile from Digihost/Fortistar, and I can hear the plant like a mosquito constantly hovering next to my ear. Even low levels of noise pollution have been found to contribute to physical and mental health issues. And on top of the noise, we're concerned about the impact the increased local air pollution from the plant will have on our health. I urge Governor Hochul and the DEC to urgently begin the process of denying Digihost/Fortistar's air permit renewal," said Kevin O'Connor, North Tonawanda resident.

"It is understandable that every mayor and economic development specialist in Rural America harbors the same hope. How can we take our local resources and use them to create sustainable jobs? In New York State, we can squander our air and electricity resources for outsiders to create but a handful of jobs created just to send profits elsewhere through fiber optic connections. We should be left to decide what is best for New York State. Bitcoin mining does not even make the list of job creation, despite the slick presentations of venture capitalists to small communities like mine across New York State. Local McDonalds restaurants employee more workers than Bitcoin mining operations," said Colin Read, former Mayor of Plattsburgh, NY and economist at SUNY Plattsburgh.

About crypto-mining at the Digihost/Fortistar power plant

It's been over two years since the Digihost/Fortistar power plant submitted its application for an air permit renewal. It previously served as a peaker power plant, only operating at 0.9% to 4% of its annual capacity over the last five years. But the plant was purchased by Digihost in February 2023, an out-of-state company, which is now transitioning the plant, and planning to ramp up to combust fracked gas 24/7/365 in order to mine Bitcoin. This will increase the plant's carbon substantially – equivalent to 63,170 cars being driven for one year, according to the company's own projections reported to the DEC. Methane pollution and local air pollution are also projected to increase.

While the City of North Tonawanda is surrounded by water and wildlife, it already bears the burden of significant pollution. Communities surrounding the gas plant have been designated as "disadvantaged communities" under state law, and include census tracts that the state has assessed as bearing an environmental burden greater than that borne by 90% of the state. The increase in operations from crypto-mining at the Digihost/Fortistar power plant will harm an already environmentally overburdened community, in violation of New York's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.

Air pollution isn't the only negative impact of Digihost's operations - residents who live nearby the facility report they can hear its loud hum and feel the vibrations inside their homes, even with all of the windows and doors closed. One resident described the sound as "a jet engine running while you're sitting inside the plane." According to the New York Times, a growing body of research shows that chronic noise is a largely unrecognized health threat that increases the risk of hypertension, stroke, and heart attacks.

On top of creating significant air pollution, there are also water use and discharge concerns. When the Digihost/Fortistar gas plant ramps up to 24/7 operations to mine crypto, it will use and then discharge hundreds of thousands of gallons of hot water into an already-overburdened and aging municipal water system that is in need of major upgrades.

There's precedent in NYS for the DEC to deny Digihost's air permit. On June 30, 2022, the NYS DEC denied the Title V Air Permit renewal for Greenidge Generation, a crypto-mining facility in the Finger Lakes, citing dramatic increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, on November 22, 2022, Governor Hochul signed the first-in-the-nation two-year moratorium on new and renewed air permits for fossil-fueled power plants that produce their own energy to mine crypto. The new law requires the DEC perform a full environmental impact assessment on the energy and environmental impacts of crypto mining operations. However, the moratorium did not affect air permit applications that had already been submitted before its enactment, such as Greenidge's and Fortistar's applications.

Digihost has been operating on an air permit that expired on November 8, 2021, and its application for permit renewal has been pending for over two years.

Background

In its most recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that Earth is likely to cross a critical and dire threshold for global warming within the next decade if we don't quickly and drastically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. But after China banned proof-of-work crypto-mining (the process Bitcoin uses), citing, among other things, the environmental threats that mining poses to meeting emissions reduction goals, the U.S. is now hosting many energy-intensive proof-of-work crypto-mining operations. While these facilities of automated machines create few new jobs, they threaten the climate, in addition to small businesses, local economies, and natural resources.

Proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining is an energy-intensive process that requires thousands of machines whirring 24/7 to solve complex equations. Each one of these machines requires energy to run, plus more energy for cooling. Globally, Bitcoin mining consumes more energy each year than entire countries.

Earlier this year, the New York Times published an in-depth expose about the negative impacts of proof-of-work Bitcoin mining. In September 2022, the White House sounded the alarm about cryptocurrency mining - the Office of Science and Technology Policy released a report about the industry's climate threats and the need for regulation. But cryptocurrency mining continues to grow rapidly across the country. Earthjustice and the Sierra Club released a Guidebook, finding that in one year from mid-2021 to mid-2022, Bitcoin mining in the U.S. alone consumed as much electricity as four states combined, emitting 27.4 million tons of CO2 - equivalent to the emissions of as much as 6 million cars annually. More highlights from the Guidebook:

• Proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining has grown explosively in the United States since 2020. Today, an estimated 38% of Bitcoin is mined in the U.S.
• From mid-2021 to mid-2022, Bitcoin consumed 36 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity - as much as all of the electricity consumed in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island put together in that same time period.
• The massive energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining threatens to undermine decades of progress toward achieving climate goals and reducing local pollution. In addition, cryptocurrency mining practices raise costs and risks for utilities and their ratepayers, can stress electric grids, and flood communities with noise.
• The cryptocurrency mining industry already uses half the electricity of the entire global banking sector, and it will overtake the sector in two years if current trends continue. Meanwhile, the ratio of Bitcoin's energy consumption to humans who actually have Bitcoin is extremely high.
• Rather than investing in long-term energy infrastructure that benefits the grid, the cryptocurrency mining industry seeks the fastest energy that can serve its needs, and looks for minimal regulation and oversight. In practice, that translates to mining cryptocurrency at coal and gas plants, straining the electric grid in Texas, and tapping into power grids that are often fossil-fuel heavy.

Read the Sierra Club and Earthjustice guidebook here.

About Earthjustice

Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit environmental law organization. We wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people's health, to preserve magnificent places and wildlife, to advance clean energy, and to combat climate change. We are here because the earth needs a good lawyer.