National Coalition Against Cryptomining Demands Action and Oversight on Proof-of-Work Crypto

WASHINGTON, D.C. (03/03/2023) (readMedia)-- Today, Senator Markey announced he is reintroducing a bill to crack down on cryptominers' energy consumption. With a major win in New York under their belts, and promising news that the U.S. Department of Energy will announce plans to assess cryptomining's climate impacts, the National Coalition Against Cryptomining (NCAC), composed of communities impacted by cryptomining across the country, are backing Senator Markey's bill and making a new push for federal legislation. Read the group's testimony in favor of the bill attached.

"Across the country, speculators are invading communities and making false promises of economic opportunity, when they're actually destroying natural resources, causing unbearable noise problems, kneecapping local businesses, and destroying the climate. All just to make a few people very, very rich. In New York, we successfully fought for a first-in-the-nation moratorium to curb this dangerous industry. But this can't be a town-by-town or even a state-by-state fight. As the White House recommended, the federal government must take action to regulate this dangerous industry," said Yvonne Taylor, Vice President of Seneca Lake Guardian.

Read Seneca Lake Guardian's testimony in favor of Sen. Markey's bill attached.

"According to a report in the scientific journal Joule, Kentucky produces more carbon from cryptocurrency mining than any other state. Because of the state's lucrative tax breaks and existing energy infrastructure, Kentucky has rapidly expanded to provide 18.7% of Bitcoin's collective computing power for mining, second to New York's 19.9%. However, many of these operations are coming to distressed areas of the state that have long been exploited for their energy resources. It is frustrating to see so many financial incentives being offered to these companies when they actually create few jobs as they use the community's energy resources..communities that in some cases don't even have reliable water." said Lane Boldman, Executive Director of the Kentucky Conservation Committee.

"While Texans fear for their lives due to a crumbling electrical infrastructure, cryptominers are moving full steam ahead with wasting as many resources as humanly possible. The average Texan has seen their bills skyrocket, while cryptominers are enjoying enormous tax breaks, subsidies, exemptions, discount rates, and abatements. Last year, we saw an historic sell off of herds as cattle ranchers couldn't afford to feed them due to severe drought increasing the cost of hay. However, cryptominers are given unfettered access to squander our most precious resource: Water. Ours is an indigent county with a high rate of seniors living on fixed incomes. We simply cannot afford "miners" like Riot Platforms to drive up our utility bills and economically depress the entire area. Not to mention that CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL. Riot shouldn't be allowed to put the pedal to the metal on Global Climate Collapse," said Jackie Sawicky, Founding Member of the Concerned Citizens of Navarro County.

In September 2022, the White House sounded the alarm about cryptomining when the Office of Science and Technology Policy released a report about the industry's climate threats and the need for regulation. But cryptomining continues to expand quickly and widely across the country. Earthjustice and the Sierra Club released a Guidebook in 2022, finding that in just one year, Bitcoin mining emitted 27.4 million tons of CO2 - equivalent to the emissions of as much as 6 million cars annually. More highlights from the Guidebook:

• Cryptomining has grown explosively in the United States since 2020. An estimated 38% of Bitcoin is mined in the U.S, resulting in nearly 30 million tons of excess CO2 emissions in one year.
• From mid-2021 to mid-2022, Bitcoin consumed as much as all of the electricity consumed in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island put together.
• Cryptomining can raise costs and risks for utilities and their ratepayers, stress electric grids, and flood communities with noise.
• The cryptomining industry uses half the electricity of the entire global banking sector, and it's on track to overtake the global banking sector in two years if current trends continue. The ratio of Bitcoin's energy consumption to humans who actually have Bitcoin is extremely high.
• Proponents of cryptomining claim that mining is spurring new renewable development. But clean energy allocated to cryptomining doesn't actually do anything to clean up the grid, and there are few mining facilities that are building renewables to even power their own operations, let alone send to the grid.

Background

Proof-of-work cryptocurrency mining is an extremely energy intensive process that threatens the ability of governments across the globe to reduce our dependence on climate-warming fossil fuels. Mining requires thousands of machines whirring 24/7 to solve complex equations. The more machines that are running, the faster a coin is mined. Each one of these machines requires energy to run, plus more energy for cooling. Globally, Bitcoin mining consumes more energy each year than the entire country of Argentina. In the U.S. alone, Bitcoin mining produces an estimated 40 billion pounds of carbon emissions each year. Cryptocurrency mining facilities are major emitters of air pollutants. And when cryptocurrency miners rely on the public grid, they can stick everyday people with the bill. A 2021 study estimates "the power demands of cryptocurrency mining operations in upstate New York push up annual electric bills by about $165 million for small businesses and $79 million for individuals."

Meanwhile, Bitcoin has plummeted over the last year, and the crypto industry is imploding. Bitcoin miners have been similarly struggling - Compute North filed for bankruptcy, and TeraWulf Inc., which operates a Bitcoin mining facility in New York, saw its stock fall more than 90% in 2022. More Bitcoin miners are expected to go bankrupt in 2023.

Communities across the country are experiencing many of the same harmful impacts of this industry- from unbearable noise, air emissions, huge water withdrawals, enormous energy consumption, higher electricity costs for everyday people, and fights against a very subversive and aggressive industry that frequently attempts to start up in a community under the guise of a "data center" or "science center", falsely promising revenue and jobs that never come through.

About the National Coalition Against Cryptomining

Seneca Lake Guardian (SLG) is a New York State Not-for-Profit Corporation 501(c)(3) that has been fighting against Greenidge Generation LLC, a cryptomining facility along the shores of Seneca Lake for years. Realizing that this industry not only poses a major threat to New York's climate goals, but also to the country's as a whole, SLG has sought to connect and collaborate with other impacted communities across the US, forming the National Coalition Against Cryptomining in 2022. Since then, communities in states from New York to Pensylvannia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Montana, Minnesota, Texas, and Washington have joined the coalition and are urging for national legislation on the environmental and climate impacts of Proof of Work cryptomining. Communities concerned about cryptomining should contact Seneca Lake Guardian at senecalakeguardian@gmail.com