by Philip Gillemot
The polluting Greenidge Bitcoin mining facility on Seneca Lake in the Village of Dresden aims to transition primarily to a data center. In an August 1 article in the Finger Lakes Times, it was reported that Greenidge Generation has been renamed Vulcan Infrastructure and Power and that Greenidge's debt has been retired by means of over $39 million in new investment. The plan is for Vulcan to shift its main operation from crypto-mining to "high-performance computing" as a data center.
The facility was originally a coal-burning power plant, which closed, and then reopened as a natural gas-burning power plant that has functioned as a facility to process Bitcoin calculations ("mining") and to send power to the electrical grid during peak times of electrical demand. The specialized method of making Bitcoin's calculations, "Proof of Work" (POW) requires a huge amount of energy, and thus a huge amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide is produced. Though an alternative method, which requires less than one percent of the energy to process its transactions than Bitcoin's method, "Proof of Stake" (POS) is available and is being used my many other cryptocurrency companies successfully, Greenidge has refused to change the way it calculates its transactions.
The Finger Lakes Times also reported that Vulcan has applied to take an additional 260 megawatts of power from the state grid. That would be in addition to the 106 mw it already gets from it. Yvonne Taylor, Vice President of Seneca Lake Guardian and founder of the National Coalition Against Cryptomining stated that, "I find it interesting that they continue to claim that they are necessary for grid stability and that they supply power to the grid when they want to draw almost three times more power from the grid than they currently have capacity to operate." So not only would the facility continue to burn and pollute the air with carbon dioxide and thermally pollute the surrounding stream and lake waters (associated with loss of lake fish and increased harmful blooms of toxic algae), but it would also require huge amounts of electricity to be drawn from the state grid. New York State Senator Gonzalez' office notes that there are 38 large data center projects (of at least 50 mw) in New York Interconnection's queue. If all were built, they would require more than 11,900 mw of new electrical demand; this is nearly twice the combined demand of all of New York's households! We don't need to imagine very hard what the development of Vulcan and the other proposed data centers could do to our energy bills and the acceleration of climate change if left unchecked and unregulated.
Our State Legislature passed a moratorium on the development of new data centers over 20 mw in New York in June. However, Governor Hochul has not signed it yet. Popular opinion in NY and across the country has shifted sharply against the unregulated development of data centers in the last year. In response to this, Governor Hochul has signed an executive order to have a one-year moratorium on the development of new data centers over 50 mw; it is unclear whether the Greenidge facility would be included. The Legislature's bill is greatly superior to the Governor's executive order because it would:
- Include a moratorium on more and smaller data centers
- Meet energy-efficiency standards
- Include a host-community public benefit program
- Use project labor agreement- Assure that public hearings be held before permits are approved
Additionally, higher electric bills for all of us could be one of the results of the development of Vulcan's data center. Significantly higher demand for electricity, multiplied many times over in New York by other data centers could likely prove unsustainable for our environment and for energy affordability.
Additionally, the increase in machinery could increase noise levels and disrupt our sleep and quiet life.
According to Ms. Taylor, Vulcan already draws up to 139 million gallons of Seneca Lake water daily for cooling its computers and dumps it back at up to a temperature of 108 degrees Fahrenheit. Warmer lake water is associated with blooms of toxic algae and loss of fish. Expansion could worsen these impacts.
Our property values could be negatively impacted by noise and light pollution, potential harms to Seneca Lake, and unsightly industrialization.
Finally, this kind of industrialization could threaten the main economic drivers in our area: agriculture, wineries, and tourism.
State Senator Kristen Gonzales held a statewide Stop Data Centers tour recently, including in Geneva. The event in Geneva, also led by Food & Water Watch, included Assemblymember Anna Kelles, Ms. Taylor of Seneca Lake Guardian and the National Coalition Against Cryptomining, and Cornell University professor Robert Howarth. The events were covered by multiple media outlets.
Unstated is if Vulcan's proposed expansion/transition would need additional permits, as its change to primarily a data center begs the question.
If you are interested in signing a petition urging the Town of Torrey to adopt a moratorium on the expansion of the Vulcan data center, click on the following link: https://forms.gle/3mcTJWUGd8fbZUwSA
Thoughtful and stringent regulation of data centers is vitally important and needs to be adopted world-wide now. Articles in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal this week reported that a researcher at a leading AI company quit over fears that its lab and its competitors are racing to build self-improving systems that humans won't be able to control. PBS News reported that more than one AI researcher predicted that there was greater than a 10% chance that AI would eliminate the human population on earth within a decade. Also, according to the NY Times, Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, subsequently called for a global slowdown of AI development and the leaders of two other top A.I. companies (Sam Altman of OpenAI and Elon Musk of SpaceX) agreed to a slower pace of development.