要点:
- ニューヨークに本拠を置く仮想通貨マイニング施設「Greenidge Generation」は、マイニング企業が環境や地域社会に与える影響に関する州および全国的な議論の中心となっている。
- 少なくともニューヨークでは、この議論がグリーンリッジのような企業を対象とした法案の制定につながった。
- より大規模なビットコインマイニングの議論であらゆる当事者が使用するレトリックは誤った情報に基づいていることが多いが、ニューヨーク州北部では環境保護活動家たちが実際に不正確な議論で法案に影響を与えている。
- しかし、施設の近くに住む地元住民らは、自分たちは会話から排除されたと主張しており、広範な議論ではグリニッジが彼らの生活の中で果たしている役割が無視されている。
ニューヨーク州ドレスデン — 昨年、キャシー・ホチュル知事は、ガス発電所などの炭素ベースのエネルギー源を利用した新しい仮想通貨マイニング施設の2年間の禁止に署名した。
ニューヨーク州の画期的な法律は、ビットコイン（BTC）マイニングが州に与える影響についての数か月にわたる議論の末に制定された。地方組合のメンバーと、この議論の中心となっているビットコインの採掘を行う発電所、グリニッジ・ジェネレーションの近くの住民は、一時停止に反対した。法案の支持者らは、この植物が氷河湖に熱水を噴き出し、数千匹の魚を殺し、他の水生生物に有害な有毒藻類の発生に寄与したと主張した。
カユーガ湖の南と東の多くの町を代表する民主党員、ニューヨーク州議会議員アンナ・ケレス、アースジャスティスやシエラ・クラブなどの全国的環境保護団体、セネカ・レイク・ガーディアンのような超地元団体を含むこの法案の支持者たちは、法案の可決を主要法案として予告した。勝利。今、彼らは全国的に戦いを挑んでいる。
今年だけでも、ケレス氏は米上院の環境・公共事業小委員会とペンシルベニア州下院の環境資源・エネルギー委員会で証言を行っている。上院委員会の委員長を務めるエド・マーキー上院議員（民主党、マサチューセッツ州）は、今回の公聴会を「議会が長年にわたって行ってきた公聴会の中で最も有益な公聴会の一つ」と呼んだ。
「グリニッジのような施設は水生生物にも悪影響を及ぼし、毎年数千匹の魚を殺し、野生動物と人間の両方に有毒な有害なアオコの発生リスクを高めている」とケレス氏は上院公聴会で述べた。
しかし、大きな問題がある。ケレスとその同盟者たちが使っているレトリックの多くは、確かに善意ではあるものの、真実ではない。環境活動家たちの発言の多くは、たとえば、グリニッジがセネカ湖の平均気温を上昇させている、有害な藻類の繁茂を引き起こしている、ジェットエンジンのような大きな騒音を発しているなどといったものだが、州が収集したデータや直接の証言によって簡単に反証される。経験。
同時に、業界のロビイストや擁護者たちは、ビットコインマイニングの潜在的な利点をますます息を切らして宣伝しており、暗号通貨業界のこの分野が再生可能エネルギーやクリーンエネルギーへの投資を促進し、そうでなければ導入する理由のないエネルギー網を強化する可能性があると述べています。改善されること。これらのビットコイン支持者の中で最も熱心な人々は、自分たちに同意しない人を攻撃します。今月、ペンシルベニア州の議員の前でビットコインマイニングについて証言していたケレスさんのツイッターアカウントが何者かにハッキングされ、15分間で名声を博したミームコイン、ペペコイン（PEPE）を宣伝するために彼女のフィードを利用された。
これらの議論は高度に政治化されており、環境活動家とビットコイナーの間のほぼ手に負えない対立であるが、表面的には環境論争であるが、本質的には仮想通貨業界が世界に提供する価値、そしてその価値が価値であるかどうかについての哲学的な議論である。明らかな、そして潜在的に大きな環境コストを負担する価値があります。
マイニングをめぐる議論はこれまでのところ、この哲学的な会話を取り上げているだけで、ニュアンスにはあまり立ち入っていません。CoinDeskは、ビットコインマイニングが「価値がある」かどうかという疑問に答えようともしていない。
ニューヨークはテキサスと並んでその議論のホットスポットとなっており、グリニッジはありそうでなかった代表的な存在となった。テキサス州オースティン郊外にあるライオットプラットフォームズのセンターなど、他のマイニング施設もビットコインマイニングの議論でより大きな役割を果たしてきたが、グリニッジはオールバニー（ニューヨーク州の首都）やワシントンD.C.での議論で重要な位置を占めている
It’s important to note that Greenidge occupies a unique role, and it’s difficult to directly compare these different facilities and how they affect the communities around them. Riot taps into an existing (sometimes shaky) energy grid, while Greenidge generates its own electricity. Other mining facilities, such as those in upstate Washington, might rely on a limited amount of power or use power paid for by the community as a collective, meaning the costs from an increase in usage get passed along to everyone regardless of how much power each individual may use. A county in Tennessee is suing a local mine in part due to the noise it generates, a complaint that some locals in Dresden say doesn’t apply to them.
グリニッジを巡る議論とメディア報道は、ニューヨーク州ドレスデンの現場の現実を考慮しない、雪だるま式に増えていく誤情報の一部となっている。
誤報の雪だるま式
この誤った情報の雪だるま式は、全国的な議論の中で誇張された些細な発言と、誤った仮定に基づいて構築された大規模なキャンペーンの両方で構成されています。
たとえば、2021年7月、セネカ湖に家と土地を持つ地元の環境活動家アビ・バディントンさんはNBCに対し、湖は「温水浴槽に入っているように感じるほど暖かい」と語った。バディントン氏の発言は、Ars TechnicaやBusiness Insiderなどの主要メディアで取り上げられた。
Buddington later clarified that she meant not the lake itself, but the water near Greenidge’s discharge pipes (the facility uses water from the lake for cooling, as it has since it was built in 1937 as a coal-fired power plant) in Keuka Outlet.
And while Buddington was correct in asserting that Greenidge is putting warmer water back into the lake than it takes in, the water discharged is nowhere near the “hot tub” temperature or 108 degrees Fahrenheit activists and Kelles claim it is.
The average temperature difference between Greenidge’s water intake and its output is between 9 and 13 degrees – making it roughly 32 degrees below the level permitted by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, a Greenidge spokesperson said in response to CoinDesk’s inquiry. NBC News reported that 108 degrees is the maximum allowed temperature for water Greenidge puts back into the lake, contradicting Kelles’ claim that that was the actual temperature of the water discharge. The local activists at Seneca Lake Guardian accused Greenidge of strawmanning its critics, asserting that “no one ever said” Greenidge was discharging water at that temperature, but Kelles has said so often, including in a February 2022 press release.
Furthermore, the average temperature of Seneca Lake has remained generally consistent over the past few years, Vice News’ Motherboard reported, citing data from scientists at local Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
According to Motherboard’s investigation, the college has recorded a steady, annual 0.2 degrees Celsius rise in temperature for Seneca Lake since the mid-1990s, indicating the lake is warming slowly, but that rise has not been correlated with Greenidge’s operation.
Despite Buddington’s subsequent clarification, the ball was already rolling. In December 2021, less than six months after NBC’s article was published, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Greenidge Generation’s CEO demanding information about the firm’s impact on climate change and the local environment. Her letter cited local residents’ concerns about “the temperature of water outflow.”
The water temperature misrepresentation is just one example of how an incredibly nuanced subject has become something of a political and emotional flashpoint for environmentalists and bitcoiners alike.
Complicating matters, bitcoin mining’s supporters have too-often chosen to combat misinformation with misinformation of their own or, at best, bad-faith trolling.
A recent video from Riot Platforms in response to a New York Times article about the pollution created by bitcoin mining facetiously claimed that “bitcoin mining has zero carbon emissions” based on indoor carbon dioxide testing at the Bitdeer mining facility in Rockdale, Texas.
If taken at face value, that would obviously be a disingenuous statement. If it’s a joke, as Riot claimed after receiving online backlash, it wasn’t widely recognized as such and served mainly to incense the other side.
It is not a question that bitcoin mining is energy intensive. In 2020, the most recent year data is available from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), Greenidge emitted a massive 288,440 tons of carbon dioxide into the air.
Some locals are OK with that, given the benefits the facility brings.
Steve Griffin, a native of New York’s Yates County and the CEO of the Finger Lakes Economic Development Center, a quasi-governmental organization tasked with growing the economy in Yates, said that despite Greenidge’s emissions, concerns that it’s harming local wildlife may be overblown.
“We know the value and the importance of the lakes’ worth and in our environment or climate. I mean, we’re a big agricultural community, we know what the value is of the climate,” he said. “We wouldn’t want to incentivize anything that was going to clearly negatively impact that.”
Other examples of the misinformation surrounding the Greenidge debate range from debates about how many employment opportunities it provides to the impact it has on the local electricity grid.
グリフィン氏のような地元の声は、グリニッジやより広範な仮想通貨マイニングをめぐる議論の中で、ほとんどかき消されてきた。
現地の声
2022年半ば、コインデスクの記者らはフィンガー・レイクス地域を訪れ、セネカ湖にあるグリニッジの施設近くの小さな町を訪れ、地元住民、企業、町職員、組合員らと話をして、改修された発電所をどう見ているかを聞いた。
ドレスデン村長ウィリアム・ホール氏によれば、今回の訪問は前例のないものだったという。グリニッジをめぐるメディアの騒ぎにもかかわらず、ホール氏は記者、ロビイスト、政治家からグリニッジについて連絡を受けたことは一度もなかったと語った。これには、成功したビジネスの例としてグリニッジを取り上げるビットコイン支持者と、ビットコインが地元の環境に害を与えていると主張する批評家の両方が含まれます。
When CoinDesk contacted Hall again in May 2023, his staff confirmed that no one had called or visited him to speak about Greenidge since our last visit.
“Nobody has ever come to talk to us about it,” Hall said. “We need people from somewhere to take an interest, to come talk to the people that are benefitting [from Greenidge’s presence], not the anti-[Greenidge] people that don’t even live here.”
In Hall’s telling, only the so-called “cottage people” – wealthy out-of-towners with lake houses or plans to retire on Seneca Lake – were upset about Greenidge’s presence. One of the “cottage people” Hall referenced was Buddington.
“We had a lady down on Arrowhead Beach that was very, very involved in the anti-[Greenidge] side,” Hall said. “[Buddington and her husband] are Rochester residents, eventually going to live here when they retire, which I understand. She told the press that the water in front of her cottage was bathwater warm. And that morning, someone had already checked the temperature and it was in the 40s.”
Buddington did not respond to a request for comment.
ホール氏によると、ドレスデンの300人余りの住民のほとんどがこの工場を支持しているという。彼らは、この湖が長年にわたって存在していることをよく知っており、地元の病院のための高価な新しい CT スキャナーや油圧式の「生命のジョー」の費用の一部を負担するなど、その幹部が地域社会にもたらした貢献に感謝していた。 」消防署の救助システムで、75歳のホールさんは今もボランティアの消防士を務めている。
ドレスデン全体にグリニッジの投資の（文字通りの）兆候がありました。同社は、子供向けの地元の遊び場と、村への人々を歓迎する電子看板を後援しました。
地元住民や経営者など、コインデスクが話を聞いた人々の多くは、グリーニッジについて何らかの意見があるとしても、湖上にグリーニッジが存在することは地域にとって良いことであると同意した。
航空許可が拒否されました
CoinDesk spoke to Hall less than two weeks after NYSDEC decided to deny Greenidge’s application to renew its Title V air permit – five-year permits required to operate facilities deemed as high polluters (Cornell University, for example, is another facility in the region with a Title V Air permit).
The decision came after a lengthy campaign against Greenidge by environmental groups, in which 4,000 letters were submitted to NYSDEC – 98% of which were anti-Greenidge.
Though Greenidge was operating within the limits set by its NYSDEC-granted permits, the Department claimed its decision to deny the renewal application was “based on the determination that the facility’s continued operation would be inconsistent or would interfere with the attainment of the Statewide greenhouse emission limits” established by the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), an ambitious plan to reach zero net emissions by 2050.
“The very first hearing, they bussed people in here. You couldn’t move in the village. But they were not residents, they came from a long ways away.”
Dresden Mayor William Hall
Three months before NYSDEC’s denial, however, Greenidge argued that it was already compliant with CLCPA guidelines and even proposed adding two new binding emissions limits to its renewed permits – to reduce permitted greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by the end of 2025, five years before the CLCPA’s first targets in 2030, and to become a zero-carbon-emitting power generation facility by 2035.
The issue, to Hall, felt so cut-and-dried in favor of Greenidge that the massive outcry against it came as a shock.
“Through this whole thing, the [pro-bitcoin] groups have been weak,” Hall said, noting that the environmentalists, on the other hand, have mounted a strong campaign.
“The very first hearing, they bussed people in here. You couldn’t move in the village. But they were not residents, they came from a long ways away,” Hall said.
「それは私を動揺させてしまいました…」ホールは後ずさりした。「あらゆる種類の資金と政治的支援を得て、何百年も続いているこれらの（環境）グループのいくつかを見てください。そして、彼らはここの小さなコミュニティに参加し、これが起こっているのです。彼らはただあなたを蹂躙するだけだ。」
いい仕事なんてないよ
ホール氏や他の地元のグリニッジ支持者はビットコインのことをあまり気にしていない。しかし、彼らが気にしているのは仕事です。
はっきり言っておきますが、多くのビットコイン採掘業者の議論にもかかわらず、実際のところ、どのようなビットコイン採掘事業であっても、グリニッジはこの地域の主要な雇用主ではありません。ビットコインのマイニング業務の運営にはそれほど多くの人員は必要なく、創出される仕事のほとんどは一時的な建設の仕事か、メンテナンスやセキュリティなどの低賃金の職のいずれかです。
But, in upstate New York – a region once defined by a plethora of well-paid and unionized manufacturing jobs that have dried up – a job is a job. Many towns that were once filled with working-class families have withered as the plants that provided their residents’ jobs closed and moved overseas. The Finger Lakes region is no exception.
Griffin, of the development center, said Greenidge employs 54 people, paying roughly twice as much as the traditional manufacturing salaries in the area.
Griffin, who is also a basketball coach at the local high school, told CoinDesk that it was rewarding to see some of his students go to work for Greenidge after graduation.
“Kids I used to coach are now working near home, where you never would have expected that. Their parents sure wouldn’t have expected their kids to be able to live near them, making more money than they probably made out of college,” Griffin said. “It’s honestly everything from an economic development perspective you’d hope it to be.”
Mike Davis, the business manager of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 840, said Greenidge is an important source of work for union members, especially during slow winter months when construction normally slows down.
IBEW’s workers, Davis said, have good paying jobs – especially by local standards, where the major employer is the region’s $3 billion agri-tourism industry, which mainly provides low-paid and often part-time labor and hospitality jobs. A junior wireman, according to Davis, makes $38.95 per hour, with an additional $20 per hour in benefits.
In the summer months, Davis said Greenidge typically needed six to eight of the Union’s electrical workers at any one time, but that number was closer to 40 in the winter months – the company deliberately scheduled certain upgrades and similar operations for those winter months, Davis said, so as to keep these workers employed.
If Greenidge were to shutter its operation, Davis said, winters could be tough to find enough work to keep all his members paid.
「おそらく10～15世帯が影響を受けるだろう」とデービス氏は語った。「冬の間、グリニッジで働く人が 15 人減れば、私が派遣できる地域の仕事も 15 人減ります。」
全国各地に支部を持つIBEWは、採掘一時停止法案可決を求めるケレス氏の推進に対して声高に抵抗している。連合の反対派は、前の議会で法案可決に向けたケレス氏の最初の試みを阻止する責任を負ったが、ケレス氏の二度目の試みで法案が最終的に可決されるのを阻止するには十分ではなかった。
ケレス氏はCoinDeskからの複数のコメント要請に返答しなかった。
神話を打ち破る
おそらく、議員や地元の活動家がセネカ湖周辺の環境を保護するために数十人の組合の仕事を犠牲にすることをいとわないのは理解できる。
In their telling, Greenidge is a monstrosity, a gas-guzzling “cancer” that blights the otherwise serene, rolling hills surrounding the glacial lake, as Yvonne Taylor, vice president of Seneca Lake Guardian put it in a press release,
Activists like Taylor express anger that the power plant, built in 1937 but mothballed in 2011, was purchased by a Connecticut-based private-equity firm, converted to a natural gas–fired plant and brought back online – something they see as a step backward.
Easily disproved is Kelles’ assertion that the area surrounding Greenidge sounds like standing near a “jet engine on a tarmac.”
When CoinDesk visited the facility last summer – standing outside, because Greenidge, which has been notoriously tight-lipped with the press, did not respond to CoinDesk’s repeated requests to tour the facility – the only sounds to be heard were the soft whooshing of fans and bird calls.
Another major complaint from Taylor and activists like her is that the warm water Greenidge is putting back into Seneca Lake – the same process used by the facility since 1937 – is contributing to harmful algal blooms (HABs) on Seneca Lake. If true, that would be worrisome. HABs (essentially, explosions of algae) can be devastating to aquatic life.
This is a claim activists have repeated over and over and over again.
But here’s the rub: data shows that each of the Finger Lakes – not just Seneca Lake – has experienced HABs in recent years. There is not a power plant on any of the other lakes. The first reported cyanobacterial HAB on Seneca Lake was in 2015 – two years before the plant re-started and five years before it began mining bitcoin.
Furthermore, the State of New York commissioned a report on Seneca and Keuka lakes last August that found that phosphorus discharges are “considered the primary substance affecting water quality and the usability of the resource for both aquatic habitat and human uses.” Greenidge’s operation does not discharge phosphorus, a compound found in most fertilizers.
Bruce Murray has kept a fairly low profile in the debate. His winery, Boundary Breaks, sits on the east side of Seneca Lake and occupies 150 acres opposite Greenidge.
He told CoinDesk that in the last 25 years, there have been substantial changes in the aquatic condition of Seneca Lake. The salinity of the lake has risen (there are several salt mines in the area), the population of lake trout has decreased and invasive species of wildlife, like quagga mussels, have proliferated.
Activists have also repeatedly reiterated concerns that Greenidge’s intake pipes were responsible for sucking up fish, larvae and other aquatic critters and killing them. Greenidge spent $6 million constructing and installing wedge-wire fish screens in response to concerns.
CoinDesk tried to reach Taylor, calling and emailing several times to get Seneca Lake Guardian’s side of the story. When a reporter finally reached her by phone, Taylor was curt.
“We’re not interested in working with you, OK?” Taylor said, before hanging up.
「それは非常に政治的だ」
地元の環境団体の主張の不正確さは、ホール氏やデイビス氏のようなグリーンリッジの地元支持者らを悩ませている。
デイビス氏はコインデスクに対し、組合員のほとんどは家族が何世代にもわたってこの地域に住んでいる地元住民で、その多くは熱心な狩猟者や漁師であると語った。
「私たちは真っ先に立ち上がり、『これは湖に悪いので、もうそんなことには興味がない』と言うでしょうが、そうではありません」とデービス氏は言う。「これらの藻類はすべての湖に発生していますが、すべての湖に発電所があるわけではありません。なぜその理由を解明するためのテストを行わないのでしょうか? なぜ私たちは指を指して、それがグリニッジだと言っているのですか？」
“[Kelles’s] region has been notoriously environmentally friendly,” Davis added. “She goes to her base, and that’s her base. It’s very political. It’s very divisive. And, unfortunately, most of the time, the information that’s out there is from a special interest group. But the real information, if you sit down and look at it, doesn’t add up.”
Griffin, too, expressed frustration with what he described as the “constant punching back-and-forth” between environmentalists and bitcoiners over Greenidge.
He speculated that the real issue for the anti-Greenidge camp was that bitcoin simply wasn’t relevant to their lives. When other data centers open up, Griffin said, there are ribbon cuttings.
Hall, the Dresden mayor, appeared to agree.
「まったく理解できない人もいる」と彼は言う。「誰かが彼らに悪い点を伝えましたが、それはただの嫉妬だと言っている人が何人もいます。地元にも何人かいます。彼らは一階に入居できなかったし、お金も稼いでいないので、他の誰もお金を稼ぐつもりはありません。そして、それがそこにあります。」
ワイナリーのオーナーであるマレー氏はコインデスクに対し、お金を稼ぎたいという欲求は理解しており、原則としてエネルギー使用には反対していないが、ビットコインの意味は理解していないと語った。
「そこでは何千台もの採掘機械を稼働させることができます」と彼は言いました。「何のために、それが問題だ。何のために？”
グリッドの問題
While bitcoin’s relevance may be debatable, the need for a consistent and reliable source of power is not. Meeting the state’s increasing energy demand, which is ballooning as more electric cars come online (electric vehicles are expected to gobble up 14% of New York’s total energy output by 2050), is not currently possible without fossil fuels.
The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), which monitors the state’s power grid, said in its 2022 annual analysis that the grid is strained by the “deactivation of generation resources that provide critical reliability services to the grid.”
Griffin told CoinDesk that Greenidge is, first and foremost, a power generation plant.
“Their primary operating purpose is to generate power and send it to the grid when the grid needs it,” Griffin said. “Every day, power goes from that plant to the grid. Every single day.”
When the power isn’t needed, Griffin explained, Greenidge uses its excess capacity – which would otherwise be wasted – to power its bitcoin mining operation.
NYISO, the state’s independent entity which oversees its power generators, referred CoinDesk to its Gold Book annual report in response to a request for comment about how much electricity Greenidge provides to the state’s energy grid or what shuttering Greenidge might mean for it. A spokesperson told CoinDesk the entity did not have any data on how much of the energy generated goes to the grid, versus mining.
Before Greenidge began mining bitcoin, it sent an average of 186,878 megawatts (MW) of power to New York’s grid, according to data provided by a Greenidge spokesperson. After its bitcoin mining operation came online, the amount of power Greenidge was sending to the grid – excess power that was not consumed by bitcoin mining – was comparable, at a yearly average of 184,889 megawatts of power.
A review of Greenidge’s most recent quarterly filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission indicated it did indeed generate revenue from selling electricity to the NYISO, but only provided dollar figures and not the electricity mix itself. Bitcoin mining is more profitable than selling electricity to NYISO, based on these filings. According to both the filing and NYISO’s annual report, Greenidge reported a nameplate capacity of 106 MW per hour for 2022. That translates to an annual capacity of 928,560 MW, though Greenidge says it doesn’t operate to that maximum capacity.
Davis, the IBEW director, told CoinDesk he’s sympathetic to desires to get away from natural gas as an electricity source.
「しかし、現時点では、これがあなたの選択肢です」とデイビス氏は語った。「なぜなら、需要が高まっても、太陽が照らず、風も吹かなければ、電力が不足するからです。どこかで生成する必要があります。」
本当の政策
ビットコインマイニングは、環境に実際の目に見える影響を与えます。その事実は問題ではありません。マイナーが既存のエネルギー網やエネルギー源を活用している場所では、考慮されていない可能性のある需要が生み出されます。鉱山労働者が独自の発電施設を開発する場所では、化石燃料の使用が増える可能性があります。
再生可能エネルギー源がある場所に鉱山を設立した場合でも、再生可能エネルギー源が新たな需要を満たすのに不十分な場合は、再び化石燃料の排出量が増加する可能性があります。
A Greenidge spokesperson declined to respond to specific questions about the company’s operations or impact on the local grid. In a statement attributed to Greenidge President Dale Irwin, the company said “the campaign run against Greenidge for years has been factually inaccurate and intentionally misleading. Those untruths masked as advocacy have unquestionably impacted policy decisions and it’s unfortunate.”
“It truly didn’t become an issue until they started doing bitcoin mining. That was the trigger for when all of a sudden, all of the alarm came.”
Finger Lakes Economic Development Center CEO Steve Griffin
The debate around bitcoin mining’s role in the U.S. ignores much of the nuance around these companies’ roles and conflates the different types of facilities. This wouldn’t be a problem, except these debates are driving real policies and policy outcomes in the U.S. without always hearing from those most directly affected, particularly in places like Dresden and other immediately adjacent villages like Torrey and Penn Yan.
“We’re direct beneficiaries of that plant,” Hall said. “The town of Torrey is a direct beneficiary. They get payment in lieu of taxes – the town, the county, the school district is a huge beneficiary. If the school district benefits from the tax money, it obviously benefits me and you as the homeowners.”
Griffin, of the development agency, said Greenidge generated $3 million in 2021 in the payments in lieu of taxes.
Though he acknowledged there are some residents who oppose the plant, Griffin said he knew “way more people” who supported Greenidge’s continued operation than who opposed it.
“In my day-to-day, I hear more positives about the plant operating than negatives. Far more,” Griffin said. “It truly didn’t become an issue until they started doing bitcoin mining. That was the trigger for when all of a sudden, all of the alarm came.”
He added: “We did it here, and it’s the end of the world. The opposition to this one, it’s confusing to me. And the only thing I can point to is that people are just not sure what bitcoin does for them.”
Nolen Hayes contributed reporting.
This story originally appeared on Coindesk
カユーガ湖の南と東の多くの町を代表する民主党員、ニューヨーク州議会議員アンナ・ケレス、アースジャスティスやシエラ・クラブなどの全国的環境保護団体、セネカ・レイク・ガーディアンのような超地元団体を含むこの法案の支持者たちは、法案の可決を主要法案として予告した。勝利。今、彼らは全国的に戦いを挑んでいる。
