By Philip Gillemot

On Wednesday November 19, the Town of Lansing Board withdrew its proposed moratorium (presumably aimed at the proposed TeraWulf data center) on large scale development. The issue was first brought forward at a board meeting in September. The moratorium was extensively discussed by both the board and public and has been reported by local media. There was at least one previous public hearing on October 15, with speakers both pro and con airing their points of view. Another public hearing was set for November 19. Then on November 14, the town announced that the public hearing was cancelled, and that a motion to withdraw the moratorium would be on the agenda. 

TeraWulf had threatened legal action if the moratorium was passed. Note that the proposed data center would at peak capacity draw enough electricity to power over 200,000 homes, according to calculations by associate professor of environmental engineering at Rice University, Daniel Cohan as reported in an article from CBS, Austin Texas. I spoke at the board meeting last week on my own behalf after the moratorium was withdrawn, urging the board to reconsider a moratorium on large-scale developments.  I noted that it would put a huge demand on our power grid when we are currently falling behind the pace to reach our state’s mandated goal of producing 70% of our electricity by the year 2030 without producing climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions. I noted also that it would be vital to have strict noise standards to prevent noise pollution locally and across the lake, and that to prevent degradation of aquatic life it would be necessary to screen the water intake and return the water cooled sufficiently to prevent harmful blooms of algae in the lake. Note that this data center is just one of thousands being proposed and built around the world. We know that greenhouse gas emissions do cause global warming, which in turn increase severe heat, fires, droughts, crop losses, hurricanes, floods, loss of glaciers and polar ice, rising sea levels with loss of coastlines and islands, loss of wildlife, severe economic losses, and mass migration. Currently, necessary environmental efforts to transition from carbon-based energy production to non-polluting energy generation and building materials are being blamed for the lack of affordability in this country. This year Governor Hochul has stopped or delayed implementation of several vital programs passed by the state legislature, with the lack of "affordability" being a major reason for doing so. However, investigation of these programs and clean energy alternatives (as mandated by law) show that solar and wind are the cheapest forms of energy to generate and that nuclear is the most expensive and most time intensive to get online. And the immense costs to our environment and societies by uncontrolled global warming and climate change would be vastly more financially expensive and destructive to our world, as noted by the above.

It is unclear at this time if the town board will enlist the aid of the planning board and zoning board to draft another moratorium and set of zoning regulations to limit or prevent the harm of businesses that would otherwise pollute in such a severe degree, also helping to drive up the cost of electricity for everyone. If such large-scale operations are allowed to operate in the Town of Lansing, with such huge energy demands, and with such huge climate-changing emissions, then they should be obligated to ensure that the energy that they use is clean energy, whether it is produced on-site, or developed newly off-site within New York State. Energy credits of dubious authenticity should be disallowed.