Is Bitcoin mining digging the world’s wildlife a grave?
As geeks chase cryptocurrency fortunes, green campaigners fear this new industry – that uses more power than Thailand – will devastate the environment
DISORIENTATED deer are running into traffic. Bald eagles are fleeing their usual haunts. Horses desperately try to escape their enclosures. Nature is running amok in Cherokee County, North Carolina. Things are also heating up in upstate New York, where Seneca Lake feels as warm as a Jacuzzi. Fish are said to be showing signs of stress and algae are blooming.
Noise is driving away birds and wildlife. Even the breeding patterns of animals and the pollination of some plants has been disrupted. It’s all because of mining: loud, polluting and environmentally devastating.
But these are no ordinary mines excavating coal or precious metals. The damage is being done by giant cryptocurrency “mining” facilities stacked with acres of computers and servers running calculations to create valuable Bitcoin.
It is a virtual currency that only exists online, but with each Bitcoin worth around £26,197 as of last night (it fluctuates daily), it has attracted very real investment running into billions of pounds. It has also created an environmental crisis. And noise and heat pollution are just a small part of the ravages wrought by cryptocurrency production.
BITCOIN mining globally uses as much electrical energy as Thailand each year, with a carbon pollution footprint comparable to that of Greece. Crypto mines employ power-hungry hardware in their search for the code that will unlock new Bitcoin, consuming a shocking 0.5 per cent of the entire planet’s electricity.
And the environmental tragedy is that almost all that energy is used to come up with mathematical calculations that serve no purpose and are discarded until one mine hits on the correct number, and the hunt commences for the next.
The massive fuel costs of running a crypto mine have encouraged criminality.
Last year, West Midlands Police raided what they thought was an industrial cannabis farm on an industrial estate in Sandwell.
Comings and goings at all hours had been reported, wiring and ventilation ducts were visible and a police drone identified a substantial heat source – all classic signs of drug production. When they gained entry, however, they found a bank of around 100 computer units mining for cryptocurrency, but powered with electricity stolen from Western Power worth more than £16,000.
And the energy used worldwide is becoming less green. Since China banned cryptocurrency mining last year the amount of renewable energy sources used by Bitcoin mines has fallen from 41.6 per cent to 25.1 per cent. Bitcoin mines that once relied on China’s hydroelectric power have turned to the electricity powered by natural gas in America, which
is now the world’s largest Bitcoin producer.
“The natural beauty and tranquillity of our area is in jeopardy,” says Cyndie Roberson, a resident in Cherokee County, tucked into North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains. “Our rural and mountainous tranquillity has been shattered by the 24/7 deafening noise and vibration of the fans needed to cool the computers/ servers.We used to have bald eagles on our deck, and we haven’t seen them in months.”
Wildlife is unsettled by the facility’s noise, claims Roberson: “So many deer have been hit on the road right in front of it.”
The mining operation uses such huge amounts of electricity that local residents have grown accustomed to frequent power cuts.
Similar stories are told in Pennsylvania and New York State, where Bitcoin mining facilities run tens of thousands of computers and servers that can be heard for miles.The noise they make can hinder an animal’s ability to find food and mates, navigate and communicate. “Animals are altering their natural behaviours or relocating to avoid noisy areas,” says Dr Kirsten Parris, of the University of Melbourne,Australia.
The Greenidge Bitcoin mine in upstate New York, one of America’s largest, not only sucks up electricity, but also up to 139 million gallons of fresh water from Lake Seneca daily to cool its equipment, killing fish and other wildlife in the process. Water it discharges back into the lake is up to 50 degrees warmer, endangering its ecology.
“The lake is so warm you feel like you’re in a hot tub,” laments local resident Abi Buddington.
Cryptocurrency’s massive power consumption threatens to undermine any chance of achieving the goals of the Paris climate accord.
Bitcoin mining globally produces an estimated 22.9 million metric tons of greenhouse gas CO2 each year: the equivalent of emissions from 2.7 billion homes. Meanwhile, a 2018 scientific study forecast that Bitcoin production would account for a rise in global temperature of some 2C.
“We have to nip this in the bud or everything else we’re doing to fight climate change will be undermined,” warns Yvonne Taylor, of the Seneca Lake conservancy group. There are an estimated one million Bitcoin miners operating worldwide. Some, like the Whinstone mine in rural Rockdale, Texas, have 100,000 machines guzzling energy 24/7. Bitcoin mining’s computer and server hardware also become quickly obsolete as technology advances, generating an estimated 11.5 kilotons of e-waste each year, equivalent to that of the Netherlands. Most cannot be recycled and are instead dumped into landfills.
“All those toxic materials that get into the groundwater or air are just really bad for human health,” says sustainability researcher Alex de Vries at the Vrije University in Amsterdam.
Natural gas expert Prof Tony Ingraffea says: “Firing up Bitcoin mining across the country for private enterprise, without regard to social good, is a really bad thing to be doing.”
But with rich profits at stake, he admits: “It’s going to get worse.”
Residents in Limestone, Tennessee, approved the construction of a Bitcoin mining plant on the promise of generating new jobs and tax revenue.
Instead, Red Dog Technologies opened a plant generating noise that grows louder at night and on weekends when electricity prices are cheaper.
“We couldn’t have people over to gather in our front yard because we could hardly hear one another talking,” says Preston Holley.
After a flood of complaints a judge in March ordered the Bitcoin plant’s closure, but the company is appealing the court’s ruling. Developers are working to create cryptocurrencies that are ecofriendly, and some offer carbon offsets, but for the majority mining Bitcoin there is little incentive to clean up their act. The Whinstone mine alone single-handedly generates around £295million worth of Bitcoin a year.
Crypto miners aren’t having it all their own way, however.
China banned Bitcoin mining in 2021, citing its environmental damage and ease of hiding criminal financial activity.
Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Kosovo, Morocco and Qatar have also issued bans, while El Salvador last year became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, hoping to power mining operations with volcanic geothermal energy.
IN BRITAIN, Josh Riddett of Manchester harvests methane from cow manure to produce 100 per cent green energy to fuel cryptocurrency mining. However, the Crypto Climate Accord, which aims for Bitcoin mines to run entirely on renewable energy by 2025, seems an impossible dream.
“Daily hell” is how Cherokee County activist Lynell Morris brands life alongside a Bitcoin mining facility. Yet new mines open daily, and Yvonne Taylor warns: “This could happen in any community.”