InsideClimateNews: "New York bitcoin miners are buying up power plants—and communities are fighting back." Cryptocurrency or 'crypto mines' are energy intensive. "In early 2024, under former President Biden, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) was directed to collect data from 130 identified commercial cryptocurrency minersoperating in the U.S., but the survey is still ongoing." In 2024 the EIA bookmarked crypto mines as somewhere between 0.6 percent to 2.3 percent of U.S. electricity consumption. "In New York, the energy for bitcoin mining usually comes from either the electric grid, operated by the New York Independent System Operator, or a power plant that the miners own." When a crypto mine like Greenidge Generation Bitcoin [photo] moves into a small community like Dresden near Seneca Lake, municipal officials are rarely aware of the impact it could have on local residents. [Sadly, some are even swayed by the promise of new jobs to offer tax abatements]. What they find out is this: “With the water consumption, the fire and safety risks, the water pollution, the noise pollution, people realize after the fact that maybe this is not the best use of community tax dollars.” Crypto mining uses water, in addition to fans, to cool down their servers. Warm water discharges into Seneca Lake could lead to increased amounts of cyanobacteria in Seneca Lake, creating harmful algal blooms in the water source of many in the community. "Taylor’s group, Seneca Lake Guardian, as well as Sierra Club and the Committee to Preserve the Finger Lakes, [unsuccessfully] sued Greenidge Generation in 2023, alleging that their discharges violated the Clean Water Act." Local residents have found some success in limiting the expansion of cryptocurrency mines in their towns by enacting local laws and moratoriums, but numerous larger lawsuits at the state level may be able to prevent existing mines from continuing operations, tho not all will be successful, especially given the current federal suppression of the EPA, the provisions of the Clean Water Act [1972] + Clean Air Act [1963]. Loud, thirsty + polluting, crypto mines are terrible neighbors.