Officials rule against bitcoin-mining power plant

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) » State officials denied required air permit renewals Thursday to a bitcoin-mining power plant in the Finger Lakes that environmentalists called a threat to New York’s climate goals.

In rejecting the renewals, the state Department of Environmental Conservation said Greenidge Generation’s “continued operations would be inconsistent with the statewide greenhouse gas emission limits” that New York is trying to meet under state law.

The company said it would continue operating under its current permit while it challenged the decision.

Greenidge, a former coal plant by the shore of Seneca Lake, was converted to natural gas several years ago and began bitcoin mining in earnest in 2020. Supporters say the plant provides a competitive way to mine cryptocurrency without putting a drain on the state’s power grid.

In a statement, the company insisted there was “no credible legal basis” for the denial.

“It is absurd for anyone to look at these facts and rationally claim that renewing this specific permit — for a facility that makes up a small fraction of the state’s electricity generation capacity — would impede New York’s long term climate goals. It simply would not,” the company said.

But climate activists who see Greenidge as a test case asked Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration to deny renewal of the plant’s air quality permit and to block similar projects. They argued the fossil fuel plant on Seneca Lake undercut the state’s policy of slashing greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades under its 2019 climate law.