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HEY WHAT THE FUCK

Bitcoin power plant making part of glacial lake ‘feel like a hot tub,’ residents say [Updated]

Private equity's cryptocurrency experiment pushes more costs on the public.

Ars Technica

In the past, nearby residents weren’t necessarily enamored with the idea of a pollution-spewing power plant warming their deep, cold water lake, but at least the electricity produced by the plant was powering their homes. Sixty percent still does, Greenidge said, but the rest of the time, the turbines are burning natural gas to mint profits for the private equity firm Atlas Holdings by mining bitcoin.

Atlas, the firm that bought Greenidge has been ramping up its bitcoin mining aspirations over the last year and a half, installing thousands of mining rigs that have produced over 1,100 bitcoin as of February 2021. The company has plans to install thousands more rigs, ultimately using 85 MW of the station’s total 108 MW capacity.

Seneca Lake’s water isn’t the only thing the power plant is warming. In December 2020, with the power plant running at just 13 percent of its capacity, Atlas’ bitcoin operations there produced 243,103 tons of carbon dioxide and equivalent greenhouse gases, a ten-fold increase from January 2020 when mining commenced. NOx pollution, which is responsible for everything from asthma, lung cancer, and premature death, also rose 10x.

The plant currently has a permit to emit 641,000 tons CO2e every year, though if Atlas wants to maximize its return on investment and use all 106 MW of the plant’s capacity, its carbon pollution could surge to 1.06 million tons per year, according to Earthjustice and the Sierra Club. Expect NOx emissions—and health impacts—to rise accordingly. The project’s only tangible benefit (apart from dividends appearing in investors’ pockets) are the company’s claimed 31 jobs.

Power Shortage Caused By Bitcoin Miners Makes Kazakhstan To Buy Russian Electricity - The Crypto Basic

Kazakhstan is now looking to Russia, its neighbor to provide additional power capacity, RT reports. as BTC mining operations increase

The Crypto Basic

Aidos Daribayev further noted that the consumption of energy in the country increased by 8% during the first 10 months of the year 2021, While in previous years the growth rate was between 1 to 2% per year.

In 2021, the electricity use in Kazakhstan reached 82.99 billion kWh. The Kazakhstan Energy Ministry attributed this high consumption to Bitcoin mining data centers in the country.

According to the ministry, about 50 data centers focused on the production of cryptocurrencies are located in Kazakhstan. Their load is 693.3 MW, and the total permitted capacity according to technical conditions is 972.3 MW.