A new bill that hit the New York state senate on Monday is aiming to put a multi-year pause on crypto mining operations across the state until authorities can fully suss out what that mining is doing to the climate and local environment.
An analysis by Digiconomist puts the global mining footprint at around 53 megatons of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to all of Sweden’s emissions.
While Parker’s bill will likely go through a few edits before it gets passed, in its current state, it would institute a three-year moratorium on mining operations.
In some cases, the plants provide some power to the grid while using the rest to run their mining operations.
Last month, Dresden’s Greenidge power plant announced plans to drastically expand its operation with four new single-story buildings, each planned to house nothing but the power-guzzling servers that this type of mining mandates, spread wall to wall.
The review process in the new bill would mirror what we saw in the state more than a decade ago around fracking, said Roger Downs, the conservation director for the Atlantic Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Studies show that mining comes with a pretty hefty impact even as the bitcoin price keeps on surging.
Ironically, Downs pointed to the recently passed Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act or CLCPA as one of the lynchpins for this new surge in activity across the state’s bitcoin enthusiasts.