Everyone in the cryptosphere knows it: Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are seen as the enemy to be put down by governments and big financial powers. Therefore, all means are good to denigrate this sector that is too revolutionary for their taste. This time, they have found environmentalists as an instrument of crypto-bashing. In this series, we bring you today “Bitcoin boils the lakes” – not the oceans yet, although it will soon.
Does a drop of hot water boil a cold bathtub?
The news is reported by NBC News: residents of New York State are accusing a bitcoin mining farm operated by Greenidge Generation of literally heating Seneca Lake.
While it’s true that the lake’s water is used to cool the 8,000 machines used to mine bitcoin, it turns out that the facility is allowed to take that water, as long as the temperature of the water released afterwards doesn’t exceed 30 degrees Celsius in winter and 42 degrees Celsius in summer.
While a full thermal study to close the debate can’t be produced until 2023, Greenidge Generation recently released average temperatures of the water released between March and April of this year. It turns out that the temperature is well below the thresholds authorized by the administration: in the order of 8 to 12°C only, i.e. a difference between the inlet and outlet of the water of between 5 and 7.5°C. The water of this lake near the Canadian border remains constantly very cold in depth, about 4°C.
So much for the 15.9 km3 of total water volume that Seneca Lake contains, the 0.0005 km3 withdrawn each day by Greenidge Generation is still far from being able to boil the lake, or “feel like a hot tub” as neighbors of the mining farm claim.
An obvious economic benefit from BTC mining
Moreover, as the NBC article summarizes, “not everyone wants Greenidge to leave. Quite the contrary! The mining plant has in fact donated $25,000 and $20,000 to the fire department and school district in its location, respectively.
The mining farm is also a “good, solid source of jobs,” according to Gwen Chamberlain, a former editor of a local newspaper and member of a community board that consults and acts in concert with Greenidge.
According to a recent economic study, the bitcoin-mining company would have paid a total of $272,000 in taxes to local governments in 2020.
As soon as you dig into the environmentalist accusations against the king of cryptos, you often discover that in return for a (very) low impact that is controlled and monitored, the mining farms provide a huge benefit to the local economic fabric. Despite the outright hatred of some politicians against Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto’s invention is revealing more and more its ability to improve the economy, both locally and globally.
