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Crypto Miner, Pennsylvania Hit With Lawsuit Over Pollution From Bitcoin Mine (reuters.com) 93

Posted by BeauHD from the public-and-private-nuisance dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: An environmental community group on Tuesday sued Stronghold Digital Mining claiming the company's bitcoin mine in northeastern Pennsylvania that burns waste coal and old tires for energy is polluting nearby communities with dangerous chemicals. The lawsuit by Save Carbon County filed in state court in Philadelphia, also names Pennsylvania as a defendant. The group, a nonprofit whose members live near the bitcoin mine, is seeking compensatory and punitive damages from the company, and an order directing the state to stop allowing the pollution to continue. The group said Stronghold has created a public and private nuisance by releasing mercury into waterways and spewing harmful chemicals like sulfur dioxide into the air from an aging power plant it bought to power its energy-thirsty operations. The state has issued permits allowing the pollution and subsidized the crypto-mine through tax incentives despite having an affirmative duty in the state constitution to protect the environment for its citizens, according to the lawsuit. A Stronghold spokesperson said in a statement that its operations actually clean up land and water in the area by using waste coal left behind by historic coal production in the region. "Stronghold's facilities have cleaned up millions of tons of waste coal and reclaimed over 1,050 acres of once-blighted land, now sports fields, parks, and fishing spots for local communities," the spokesperson said.
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Crypto Miner, Pennsylvania Hit With Lawsuit Over Pollution From Bitcoin Mine More

Crypto Miner, Pennsylvania Hit With Lawsuit Over Pollution From Bitcoin Mine

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  • Why is a Bitcoin miner like a panda?
    It burns, wastes coal, and tires.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It burns, wastes coal, and tires.

      Sounds like a stoner.

  • "Cleaned Up" (Score:4, Informative)

    by Barny ( 103770 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2024 @12:10AM (#64347739) Journal

    I don't think incinerating it counts as "cleaning it up".

    Actually, that's kinda the opposite.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by zib123 ( 7721916 )
      The CFB process removes up to 95% on contaminants. Their claim is that it's better to burn it in a CFB than just letting it be in the ground releasing chemicals into the air. If it's not BS it looks pretty good.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by AleRunner ( 4556245 )

        The CFB process removes up to 95% on contaminants. Their claim is that it's better to burn it in a CFB than just letting it be in the ground releasing chemicals into the air.

        That 95% is relative to just burning the coal, so it still means a whole load of pollution. I was trying to understand how coal that sat there for thousands of years could suddenly start "releasing chemicals into the air" but their claim is that it can end up burning spontaneously through lightning strikes [stronghold...mining.com].

        The whole thing is fundamentally stupid though since if the US had a decent electricity grid in which Californians were allowed to demand purchase of renewable energy and block non renewable sources then

        • Burying old tires would also contaminate ground water too, which should concern everyone that gets thirsty for a glass of clean water

          • I spent a few days in Sofia (Bulgaria) almost exactly five years ago (I think it was February) and came back ill - the air was too polluted for my delicate sensibilities. They burn all sorts of crap there - tyres, rags, whatever - to keep warm. I'm not a chemist and have no idea how tyres should be disposed of, but burning them has to be about the worst way possible. Occasionally there will be a fire involving tyres in my area, then it is "keep doors and windows closed" time. Anyone who burns tyres or p

          • Burying old tires would also contaminate ground water

            Why would a tire in a landfill contaminate groundwater?

            Tires are made from rubber, steel, and aramid fibers. Tires in a landfill are stable for thousands of years and don't decay into anything harmful.

            • Tires on cars & trucks dryrot and start breaking up in 10 to 20 years, I am sure burying them in acidic soil with other trash will cause them to decompose too

            • The rubber products in tires are polymers, and in a landfill they behave more or less exactly like plastics - they break down into micropolymers and then spread through the environment via the water table and aren't great for the health of anything that ends up ingesting them.

              In fact, people studying environmental pollution don't even bother with a distinct category for them... they just classify them as more microplastics.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by irving47 ( 73147 )

              OK, grab a blendtec and grind up 1/10th of a tire in it and then add the results to your water filter. Hell, forget the blendtec, even. Just cut a bunch of strips so they fit in your filter and drink that water for a few months.

        • I was trying to understand how coal that sat there for thousands of years

          It didn't. They aren't burning coal. They are burning "waste coal" often known as tailings, but in the industry known but a lot of very horribly toxic sounding names e.g. "gob", because ... well they are quite toxic and concentrated with all manner of metals and acids. The cleanup of waste coal is a very real concern. Most of these waste coal mountains are the result of shitty environmental practices from the 70s and they can be an environmental catastrophe for the surrounding areas.

          Now tires on the other h

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Entrope ( 68843 )

          The whole thing is fundamentally stupid though since if the US had a decent electricity grid in which Californians were allowed to demand purchase of renewable energy and block non renewable sources then instead of crypto mining, Pennsylvania could be selling this electricity for actual useful uses.

          Californians can demand that their power company buy that kind of power. Their power company isn't obliged to listen to those demands. Even so, you suggest that the demands would be to buy renewable energy, which coal isn't. On top of that, California is on a different electrical grid [wikipedia.org] than Pennsylvania, so it's not a simple case of buying and selling on the same grid.

          Given those complications, exactly how would your idea of a "decent electricity grid" solve anything?

          • It would solve one thing, if implemented correctly (correctly - that is, when there's more demand for green energy than is available then people who have chosen "100% green" plan get cut off, and enjoy smugly sitting in darkness while their next door neighbor chills with Netflix or whatever). It would very quickly confront green morons and their stupid visions with cold hard reality of what is available and what is not. Possibly even curing some of them of their mental disease

            Which is probably why the lef

          • Given those complications, exactly how would your idea of a "decent electricity grid" solve anything?

            This would increase the competition available to buy this energy, allowing others who want "green" energy to get it so their electricity was cheaper which would price the bitcoin miners out of the market. It would solve the problem of people wasting a valuable resource for something totally antisocial.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by zlives ( 2009072 )

        total legit, we should also burn nuclear waste to clean it up

        • Nuclear waste can not be "burned". Neither in a reactor nor in any meaningful way with oxygen.

          • Thankfully, there are far better oxidizers than oxygen.

            • Still does not have the result the parent meant: make the waste go away.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by Barny ( 103770 )

                Worse, or better?

                I mean, burning anything doesn't make it go away, it just makes it airborne, in this case ClF3 is actually used to treat nuclear reactor waste that turns the uranium and plutonium into gaseous compounds of fluorine.

                I was just disputing that you cannot oxidize plutonium—you just needed a better oxidizer.

                • I did not say/mean you can not oxidize.
                  I said you can not "burn waste away"

                  As there are plenty of people who think a magical reactor can burn strontium or iodine or calcium away ...

    • A Stronghold spokesperson said in a statement that its operations actually clean up land and water in the area by using waste coal left behind by historic coal production in the region.

      No. They took coal that was laying on the ground and put it into the air. They just moved the pollution from one location to another.

    • I don't think incinerating it counts as "cleaning it up".

      Well yeah, okay, but that's how to kill all those damn mosquitos! [georgia.gov]

  • There is no reason we should be burning fossil fuels to mine Bitcoin. The entire process could be done on a single server if it weren't for the fact that the chain of trust requires that massive amounts of computing power be intentionally wasted in order to create a bubble of security within an untrusted network environment.

    It has already been established as sound legal precedent that minimum efficiency standards can be enforced under the law. We do it for vehicles, plumbing fixtures, light bulbs, and HVA

    • But we're lucky they are using up waste coal!! I hate this moment in human history.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Kernel Kurtz ( 182424 )

      There is no reason we should be burning fossil fuels to mine Bitcoin. The entire process could be done on a single server if it weren't for the fact that the chain of trust requires that massive amounts of computing power be intentionally wasted in order to create a bubble of security within an untrusted network environment.

      It has already been established as sound legal precedent that minimum efficiency standards can be enforced under the law. We do it for vehicles, plumbing fixtures, light bulbs, and HVACR equipment. The government needs to get off its ass and regulate this blight out of existence. Sorry Bitcoin bros, you can follow Ethereum's lead and go proof-of-stake, or perish. I'm not gonna shed any tears; I didn't buy an EV so you can go around burning truckloads of coal to play your stupid magic internet money greater fool gambling game.

      Their mining and your EV operate under the same free market for energy. As much as I find cryptocurrencies sketchy, I'd still be careful trying to manipulate that entitlement. It is fraught with danger.

      • Let's say you operated a coffee roasting facility and it used the same amount of power as a similarly-sized operation, but only produced one roasted bean every 10 minutes. The amount of power that you're using isn't the issue, since we've already established that it's a perfectly cromulent amount of electricity for a coffee roaster to be consuming. The problem is that your roasting equipment is Earth shatteringly bad at converting kWh into roasted beans, and therefore shouldn't be legal to connect to a so

        • The problem is that your roasting equipment is Earth shatteringly bad at converting kWh into roasted beans, and therefore shouldn't be legal to connect to a source of power in the first place.

          Why is it a problem? I pay for the electricity. Then, either I use the roasted beans to make myself some coffee (in which case I just waste my own money, no different that any other way of wasting money) or I sell them. If I sell them then I will be asking for a lot of money for them. Other companies that use more efficient equipment will be able to sell the same roasted beans for much lower price and I'll go out of business or will have to get better equipment to be able to compete with them.

          • Re: This is legitimately infuriating (Score:4, Insightful)

            by MrNaz ( 730548 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2024 @07:35AM (#64348081) Homepage

            This attitude is the problem.

            We are discovering now that what we do DOES affect others.

            The philosophy that leads people to think "it's mine therefore I have a right to waste it" is not only obsolete, it's harmful and should be rethought.

            • A big part of spend money represents used energy - mining of resources, refining those resources, making whatever thing I am buying etc. And a lot of things we spend money (and energy) are not strictly necessary. However, there are probably some things that you approve of and consider to be OK, but not others.

              Let's say I installed solar panels on my house and now have "free" power when the sun is shining. Am I allowed to use it however I want, say, by running an inefficient light bulb or some other device t

            • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

              by alispguru ( 72689 )

              "it's mine therefore I have a right to waste it" stops when you have to dump the waste into the atmosphere or the waters.

          • Other companies that use more efficient equipment will be able to sell the same roasted beans for much lower price and I'll go out of business or will have to get better equipment to be able to compete with them.

            That's how the free market is supposed to work. Buyers will most often reject an inefficiently produced product because the competition can reduce production costs by using more efficient manufacturing equipment and pass some of the savings on to the consumers. Problem is, Bitcoin was specifically designed to prevent this from happening. All miners, regardless of the efficiency of their hardware, are competing for the same block reward. The only way to make the process more efficient (forcing the majori

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Kisai ( 213879 )

        Nah.

        As states start switching to cleaner sources of energy generation, EV's become cleaner.

        States/countries that run on nearly 100% clean sources (eg zero thermal gas/coal) should be regulating what is connected to their grids.
        If you're "mining" you should be paying industrial rates for electricity. Which means you pay the energy generator in a use-it-or-lose it contract.
        https://app.bchydro.com/accounts-billing/rates-energy-use/electricity-rates/electrification-rates.html
        -The Clean Industry and Innovation R

        • States/countries that run on nearly 100% clean sources (eg zero thermal gas/coal) should be regulating what is connected to their grids.

          And states that use 100% non-clean energy sources should not? Because that is where you are encouraging them to go.

          If you're "mining" you should be paying industrial rates for electricity.

          I'm sure they do. And the more you use the lower the industrial rate goes, regardless of special designations.

          The Clean Industry and Innovation Rate is not available to projects that produce or exchange cryptocurrency.

          So they have a special rate for carbon capture and AI. Sounds like something a politician thought up.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Something has gone badly wrong if you can't stop people burning coal and tyres to mine crypto, without also affecting the transition to EVs.

      • The entire process could be done on a single server
         
        Pretty clear you don't even know how bitcoin works... so why are you getting so mad?

        • Pretty clear you don't even know how bitcoin works... so why are you getting so mad?

          Actually, understanding how Bitcoin works is probably why I never made any money from it. It's such a terrible, unsustainable idea that it surprised the hell out of me when people started actually dumping real money into it. Turns out it's the psychological nature of human greed that I have trouble with; I'm actually really good with machines.

          Okay, that's enough tooting my own horn. Here's how you can run Bitcoin on a single server: Testnet in a box [bitcointalk.org] Granted, there'd be absolutely no protection from your

      • I'd still be careful trying to manipulate that entitlement. It is fraught with danger.

        What is far more fraught with danger is *not* manipulating that entitlement. The well known economic theory of "Tragedy of the Commons" comes into place and has proven repeatedly to be devastating in the absence of regulations.

        • What other free-market commodities should we reserve for only special classes of people?

          • What other free-market commodities should we reserve for only special classes of people?

            None. There are no free-market commodities. Zero. Everything is to some extent regulated, even if you yourself don't know what the regulations are. That is especially true for primary resources and utilities which are heavily regulated.

            • What other free-market commodities should we reserve for only special classes of people?

              None. There are no free-market commodities. Zero. Everything is to some extent regulated, even if you yourself don't know what the regulations are. That is especially true for primary resources and utilities which are heavily regulated.

              I know around here they will sell electricity, water, natural gas, to anyone who can pay (assuming they have enough supply and you are not a safety hazard). They also give bulk discounts. They will sell it to you even if you are doing something illegal with it, like an unlicensed grow op, because it is not actually the utilities jobs to enforce criminal law, though they will of course stop selling it to you with a court order. The exception would be if there are shortages and rationing a resource may be

    • There is no reason for mining Bitcoin.

      FTFY. Before bitcoin I thought we had a chance of cleaning up our act. But it was bitcoin specifically that made me realise that we as a species are too fucking stupid to survive long term. The amount of energy wasted to produce literally nothing at a time when energy use is a global concern is just a reflection that Thanos was right.

    • >The entire process could be done on a single server
      then it wouldn't be bitcoin. it would be a shitcoin scam that can be taken down because there is only one node.

    • Re:This is legitimately infuriating (Score:5, Insightful)

      by kipsate ( 314423 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2024 @05:46AM (#64347973)
      The design of Bitcoin doesn't allow for a more energy-efficient method of mining. The automated issuing scheme of Bitcoin dictates that currently new 900 BTC per day are minted. Simplified, that's means that all miners together can expend an amount equivalent to up to 900 BTC per day for mining these 900 coins. Would they spend more, they'd be losing money. Anything they spend less is profit. (In addition, miners also get rewarded with transaction fees that they may add to their mining budget).

      Miners convert the earned BTC to fiat (for instance, dollars) to pay for equipment, staff, rent and electricity. Every 4 years, the amount of BTC mined per day halves, and in fact there's an upcoming halving event in about 3 weeks from now. From that point onwards, only 450 BTC per day will be available to be mined, until that gets halved again to 225 in 2028.

      Note that inefficient miners will quickly be forced out. Miners that expend more money than they earn from the amount of BTC that they mine will be making a loss and will quickly fold. To give a simple example: if you'd mine yourself using power from the grid then you'll likely find that you spend more in electricity than you earn from mining. Miners therefore are forced to employ the cheapest possible power to be able to compete. Fortunately, there is abundant free power available. Power from hydro, windmills and solar can be used for free during times in which more power is generated than the grid is able to absorb. Normally during these times, electricity prices can even turn negative just so that power plants stop flooding the grid with power it can't absorb. Storing the excess power in batteries is uneconomical. Miners however are happy to absorb this power and in fact, some power generating companies offer contracts to miners to help them balance the grid by switching off- or on- their mining equipment at the right moments.

      Part of the power generated from renewables is normally wasted during times of excessive generation, but now this waste power can earn money by selling it to miners instead. This improves the business case for renewables which means cheaper and cleaner power for everyone.

      Looking at it this way, the case can be made that Bitcoin even promotes renewable energy. But the takeaway from all this is that the reality is much more nuanced than your typical "muh bitcoin wastes power, bad" knee-jerk reaction, which, by the way, also asserts that Bitcoin has no utility which is absolutely false.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rotting ( 7243 )

      And yet AI is innovative and exciting...

  • reeks of corruption (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cats-paw ( 34890 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2024 @01:03AM (#64347775) Homepage

    The state has issued permits allowing the pollution and subsidized the crypto-mine through tax incentives despite having an affirmative duty in the state constitution to protect the environment for its citizens, according to the lawsuit.

    it's not enough crypto mining is already the most useless, polluting endeavor on the planet (well, might be training ML models now), but the government of Pennsylvania decided to subsidize it.

    and

    The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection declined to comment.

    that's right, because they got caught doing something they shouldn't have.
    Disccovery is likely to get very interesting...

  • The grand master plan of crypto (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The plan for all cryptocurrencies isn't what they want to make you think it is. It's more sinister than the egalitarian image the crypto boys portray for it.

    After the 2008 financial meltdown, cryptocurrencies were born out of it, declared to be the means by which people could be freed from banks/governments, and promised to avoid any such future meltdowns from happening ever again.

    But the crypto boys watched closely the result of that meltdown, and formulated their plan: create a new form of currency, and

  • If nothing else (Score:3, Interesting)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Wednesday March 27, 2024 @06:49AM (#64348019)

    All the waste heat generated from this endeavor will help reduce the amount of snow that part of the state gets, turning it into rain which will wash all those pollutants down into the streams and finally the groundwater rather than leaving it in the air.

    Heeeyyyy, wait a minute.

    Hans Kristian Graebener = StoneToss

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by zlives ( 2009072 )

      from the streams to ricers and then the oceans and finnaly the great waterfall off the edge of the earth. because water magically appears in our taps and rains/snows.

  • As long as the pollution controls are not turned off at night its as safe a process as exists at the moment. Unless they can prove they operated out of compliance its a waste of time. Of course many companies turn their pollution control devices off at night under the right conditions that make discovery hard to nearly impossible.
  • If we remove the word Bitcoin from this story, it wouldn't have even made it on Slashdot. The real story is that the lawmakers in Pennsylvania can be easily paid off to harm the environment just to clean up their "messy coal problem." Seems interesting, if this wasn't a real issue with them, why don't they run the power plant for their own state to lower costs until everything is used up? Oh the knew and just wanted to use bitcoin as a scapegoat.

  • crypto is evil.

  • I'm surprised the Texas Bitcoin Industry hasn't been sued yet for driving up Electricity Costs by keeping demand artifically high.

    My price / kWh has increased by 60% since the BitCoin folks arrived :|

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