‘I’m worried about the air that I’m breathing’

A crypto mine’s plans to shift from natural gas to nuclear power has opened fresh concerns from locals about cryptocurrency’s pollution footprint in an upstate New York community — and ultimately led to the adoption of a nuclear-free zone and restrictions on energy development.

North Tonawanda, a city of about 30,000 located between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, is home to a crypto mining facility run by DigiPower X, previously known as Digihost. Since opening in 2022, the facility has been a source of complaints from citizens about noise as well as air pollution, as Buffalo’s WGRZ detailed.

In February, residents gathered for an information session and then a public hearing. These meetings followed the December announcement of plans for Digihost to develop power sources with NANO Nuclear Energy, a company known for its nuclear microreactors. Digihost had begun exploring switching the energy source for its crypto facility to nuclear by 2031, per WGRZ.

In response to concerns, city officials proposed a new law that would block the development of nuclear reactors within city limits. The law would also restrict the construction and operation of other energy sources — including wind, hydroelectricity, natural gas, and coal.

A vote on the law was pushed back in February and passed in March, WGRZ reported.

The debate over this crypto mine’s power connects to broader discussions about the energy-intensive nature of mining, cryptocurrency’s pollution footprint, and whether nuclear energy is a viable option to power the industry without releasing carbon pollution.

Conventional crypto mining requires a large amount of electricity. When that electricity comes from highly polluting, dirty energy sources — such as gas-fired or coal-fired power plants — cryptocurrency’s pollution footprint is correspondingly big.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a crypto-mining facility uses lots of electricity because of the computing power needed to confirm transactions and create new currency — and the energy to cool equipment. As Investopedia detailed, not all cryptocurrencies use the same energy-intensive mining system, though the most prominent one, Bitcoin, does.

It’s important to note that exact details about crypto energy use have been hard to pin down. And many crypto operations have increased the portion of their electricity coming from cleaner energy sources — including nuclear. Nuclear energy is essentially free of carbon pollution, but it comes with its own concerns about radioactive waste and historical disasters. 

Crypto proponents and researchers have noted that mining can encourage the development of renewable sources such as solar projects. However, by many accounts, crypto mining remains an energy-intensive process that can have a large carbon footprint — and can consume significant quantities of water and create noise pollution, as well. 

The pollution associated with crypto mining has implications at the community level — such as in North Tonawanda — and on a larger scale due to the possible impacts of air pollution on human health risks and Earth’s rising temperature. 

Crypto has the potential to help communities economically and to encourage local renewable energy development. It can also cause communities headaches in dealing with pollution effects.

“The world’s transition to a digital economy, facilitated by major technological breakthroughs, has several benefits,” said a 2023 UN-led report on the impacts of Bitcoin mining. “But as the demand for exchanging and investing in digital currencies is rapidly growing, the world must pay careful attention to the hidden and overlooked environmental impacts of this growth.”

What about cryptocurrency’s pollution footprint in North Tonawanda?

In its reporting on the crypto site in North Tonawanda, WGRZ cited concerns from citizens and the city about noise and carbon pollution, as well as fears about proposed nuclear solutions.

“I’m worried about the air that I’m breathing with the emissions that they’re pumping into the air, and now what this nuclear thing can do,” city resident Mark Polito told the outlet.

For its part, the crypto company’s CEO Michel Amar said, “The opportunity to collaborate with NANO Nuclear represents a bold move toward achieving our sustainability goals.”

On March 18, the city voted in favor of the new law, raising questions about DigiPower X’s next steps.

“What we’re going to be doing moving forward … we’re going to be looking at our zoning codes and how we may or may not adapt language that would allow them in some manner,” Austin J. Tylec, the city’s mayor, told WGRZ. “But for now, we have hit the brakes on nuclear energy.

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