New York State is on the brink of allowing Bitcoin mining to derail our painstaking efforts and hard-won progress for climate and environmental justice.

We need your help to prevent mothballed fossil fuel plants from coming back on line!

Bitcoin mining is the process of creating new Bitcoin (a type of cryptocurrency) by solving computational puzzles. The more machines working on the same puzzle, the greater the chance of profiting. Although not all cryptocurrency is the same, Bitcoin mining consumes a tremendous amount of electricity, so operators search for areas with cheap power or power plants that are not operating at full capacity for their Bitcoin mining machines.

The Greenidge facility on the shores of Seneca Lake is a "test case" for Bitcoin in New York. This mothballed coal-fired plant in the heart of the Finger Lakes was allowed to be repurposed in 2017 to burn fracked gas, supplying electricity to the grid in times of high demand. The DEC merely reissued the old coal-fired power plant permits (pre-dating the Clean Water Act) to the gas facility without doing an Environmental Impact Statement. The Greenidge gas plant, however, proved unprofitable (there wasn't much demand), so the owners installed 7,900 Bitcoin machines which increased their greenhouse gas emissions tenfold. If the owners now expand mining to full capacity,1 million metric tons of CO2 would be emitted annually. 

A similar facility has cropped up near Buffalo, and, in an April 2021 letter to Governor Cuomo, environmental law group Earthjustice and the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club warned that nearly 30 other upstate New York power plants could be converted to run full-time as data centers! This would cause catastrophic increases of statewide GHG emissions.

Our allies at Seneca Lake Guardian are holding an important rally on Saturday, June 5 at 2pm at the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation Region 8 Headquarters (6274 East Avon-Lima Road Avon, NY). We hope you will join us to tell the DEC to deny the Greenidge Bitcoin mining facility's Title V air permit. If the DEC does not deny the Title V air permit, our ability to meet our Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act mandated greenhouse gas emission targets will be compromised. 

And this is not just a Seneca Lake or NYS issue. The Greenidge plant is one of the largest cryptocurrency mines in the US, and burning fossil fuels for energy-intensive crypto mining during a climate emergency, with no regulation or oversight, is propelling us toward the climate change cliff. Therefore, national and international media are interested in covering this event and hope to join us Saturday.

Please share to help our allies gather a huge turnout for this crucial rally!

When: 2pm, June 5, 2021
Where: NYS DEC Region 8 Headquarters
             6274 East Avon-Lima Road Avon, NY
Facebook event to share 

Local transportation note: Seneca lake Guardian has arranged for a 56 passenger bus to stop in Watkins Glen, Dresden, and Geneva on the way to Avon, NY. If you would like to ride this bus (masks required) please email [email protected] and include your phone number.

Please join us to again save Seneca Lake and to oppose similar facilities across New York State. NYS must phase out fossil fuels in order to fight climate change, not repurpose them for mining cryptocurrency. We need to hold DEC's feet to the fire and demand that they deny Greenidge's Title V air permit renewal.

Three easy steps to take from your home, whether or not you can make it to Avon, NY on Saturday: 

1. Call your NYS Assemblymember and ask them to support Bill A7389, which would place a moratorium on any new or expanding Bitcoin operations in the state of NY until a comprehensive study of the industry and its impacts can be fully evaluated and support Bill A/7768/S7006 which bans the transfer of pre 2012 plant permits to new owners. And call your NYS Senator to ask for their support of A7768/ S7006 (to ban the transfer of pre-2012 plant permits to new owners).
2. Call Governor Cuomo: (518)-474-8390. Tell him that unregulated Bitcoin operations would compromise NY's mandated greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and that he must direct his DEC to deny Greenidge’s Title V air permit renewal in order to comply with the CLCPA. 
3. Sign on letters to the NYS Legislature:
   If you are an individual, please sign on to this letter:
   https://forms.gle/rNxL6iqSBLkXku2e6
   If you are a business, or an organization, please sign on to this letter:
   https://forms.gle/1xG9Vrhq5cLmE2Uq8
   NOTE: You can sign on to BOTH letters, once as an individual on the first letter, and again as a business owner and/ or authorized signatory of an organization.
   Please SHARE these sign-on letters with your contacts, networks and other organizations.

Thank you for everything you are doing to protect New York!

Andra
Communications & Outreach Director
Alliance for a Green Economy