On the shores of Seneca Lake or
retired power plant has reawakened,
now pumping out half a billion
pounds of CO2 a year.
Not because this community
needs electricity,
its main purpose powering 1000s
of computers 24-7 mining Bitcoin.
The Seneca Lake community in
upstate New York is suffering
the consequences of a private
equity firm buying up
a decommissioned power plant,
converting it to using natural gas
solely, almost solely actually for
the purpose of mining Bitcoin.
And when I say they're suffering
the consequences,
what I'm specifically referring to
is how this Bitcoin mining is
impacting the local environment,
particularly Seneca Lake, which
is a lake that the community enjoy.
Usually during hot seasons like
summertime, people in the community
go there, they enjoy themselves.
But the situation has gotten so
bad that the water in the lake as
is described by some of
the community members is as hot as
entering a Jacuzzi.
Now, some of you might be wondering
how does that work?
How does mining for
Bitcoin destroy the environment?
Well, certainly does emit CO2, and
also the lake itself is being
utilized for Bitcoin mining and
this next video gives you a good
explanation of how that all works.
>> A private equity firm bought
the dormant coal plant in 2014,
converting it to natural gas,
installing nearly 10,000 computers
and growing.
Bitcoin is all digital, there's no
bank no government printing money.
Instead, high powered computers
solve complex puzzles to verify
bitcoin transactions.
When they do, they also earn
bitcoins, that's called bitcoin
mining, and it devours huge amounts
of electricity more than
entire countries like Argentina and
Sweden.
>> We do not need to pollute this
lake for bitcoins,
we don't all need bitcoin.
>> An intake pipe to football
fields long cools the 70 year
old turbines with about 100 million
gallons of water a day
drawn from the lake.
The superheated water is discharged
into a river, raising fears about
the fragile trout and
harmful algae blooms.
>> I mean,
who cares about the ecosystem?
Who cares about the trout and
the algae blooms?
Algae blooms,
that sounds like something that
the community can pay for later on
if the causes any problems.
We got to privatize gains,
socialize losses and this whole
Bitcoin mining operation in Upstate
New York has led to protests in
the community understandably so.
Because again,
this power plant that was
previously decommissioned wasn't
bought by the private equity firm
in order to provide electricity or
power to the community or
to do anything wonderful for
the community,
it's all about helping to invest.
Or it's all about investing in this
decommissioned power plant in order
to mine Bitcoin, which doesn't help
the community, it helps the private
investors in Bitcoin, right?
So, this is an ongoing problem to
be quite honest with you.
Not just in New York,
but we're seeing this type
of behavior across the country,
specifically with private equity
firms relying on fossil fuels in
order to do this mining.
So, I want to give you some more
details about the private
equity firm and also give you other
examples of how this is impacting
communities across the country.
So the facility on the shores of
Seneca Lake is owned by the private
equity firm Atlas Holdings and
operated by Greenidge Generation
LLC, they have increased
the electrical power output at the
gas-fired plant in the past year.
Last week, Greenidge announced
a new Bitcoin mining operation at
a retired printing plant Atlas owns
in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
And they've got their eyes open,
they're like okay, great,
where else can we do this?
Because it's obviously highly
profitable for them,
they don't care about the impact on
the local communities, whether it's
environmental or otherwise.
But residents, of course,
aren't happy about this.
Going back to the Seneca Lake
community that
we're talking about here,
one resident by the name of Abi
told CNBC that the lake is so warm,
you feel like you're in a hot tub.
And on June 5, the residents staged
a protest as a result of this this
power plant at a nearby Department
of Environmental Conservation
office in Avon.
The regulators don't rain in
the Greenidge plant, they say
30 other power plants in New York
could be converted to Bitcoin Coin
mining, imperiling the state's
emission reduction goals.
And it seems like there's very
little regulation around this,
I mean, wow, what a shocker,
it's what you can expect.
But like other corporations,
this private equity firm is using
donations, giving out donations in
order to garner some support in
the community.
For instance, not everyone,
wants this operation gone.
The Dresden Fire Department
welcomed the company's $25,000
donation for
a Jaws -of-Life machine.
And the school district was
grateful for a $20,000 gift to
develop education and
enrichment programs.
So, I mean, that strategy is
actually incredibly smart.
I mean, when you really think about
it, you have local communities that
are defunding certain things that
are incredibly necessary,
whether it be funding for
the fire department, funding for
the public schools in the area.
You have a private equity firm come
in, they're like we don't want
a lot of backlash over what
we're doing and destroying this
community and destroying the local
environment and the environment
generally speaking, right?
They're contributing to climate
change through this Bitcoin mining.
So instead of maybe reconsidering
what they're investing in, private
equity firms like [INAUDIBLE],
we'll just buy these people off.
And they're desperate for money,
their local politicians don't do
right by them.
So $25,000 here $20,000 there will
garner some support and keep doing
what we're doing, who cares?
Jacuzzi lakes, destroy the local
trout, algae blooms, who cares?
Bitcoin mining is where it's at,
we got to make money,
private investors,
they love Bitcoin, it's the future,
let's give you more.
The environmental consequences
are horrific.
So an estimate from the University
of Cambridge says global Bitcoin
miners use more energy in a year
than Chile.
That's a country [LAUGH].
When the energy comes from
fossil fuels, the process can add
significantly to carbon emissions.
The Greenidge plant houses at least
8000 computers and
is looking to install more meaning
it will have to burn even more
natural gas to produce more energy.
So this is,
I mean it keeps getting worse and
by the way, this particular power
plant they wanted to produce 26
times as many Bitcoin, or
mine 26 times as many Bitcoin
compared to what other power plants
are currently generating right now,
or mining right now.
And here's some other examples of
what we're seeing across
the country.
As CNBC reports, in 2016,
the private equity firm,
ArcLight Capital Partners of Boston
bought into LimeTree Bay,
an oil refinery and
storage facility in,
I want to say St.
Croix, in the U.S. Virgin islands.
The operation had gone bankrupt
after a series of toxic spills, but
it reopened in February, just three
months later, it was shuttered
after it unleashed petroleum rain
on nearby neighborhoods.
Oopsie doopsie, we gotta mine for
bitcoin though.
I mean, I wonder who paid for
that by the way.
Did they pay for that or
did the community pay for
the consequences for that?
These private equity farms also
invest a large amount of money into
fossil fuel companies rather than
renewable energy, right?
And the numbers bear that out, for
instance, in the past 10 years,
private equity firms have poured
almost $2 trillion into energy
investments according to preqin,
a private equity database.
About $1.2 trillion has gone into
conventional energy investments
such as refineries, pipelines and
fossil fuel plants, compared to
just $732 billion in renewables
like solar and wind power.
An investor criticism prompts some
public companies to dump fossil
fuel assets, but then private
equity firms are ready buyers.
So while we see the gains made by
on the ground activism and
organizing regarding banks,
pulling their investments out of
fossil fuel companies,
private equity firms are like, yo,
we're looking for
some short-term investments.
We're looking for
an opportunity to make money,
we don't care about morals,
we care about ethics,
please we don't care.
This is an easy way to make money,
we don't care about
the environment,
we're going to privatize the game,
socialize the losses.
The community sick of it,
they're protesting it, but this
story doesn't get much attention.
We've heard a little bit here and
there about Bitcoin mining and
how damaging it is to
the environment but, you don't hear
these personal stories.
You don't hear these local stories,
you don't hear about what local
communities are going through
in regard to a change in their
environment, a change in even
the temperature of the lakes that
they enjoy, it's just pathetic.
And the worst part about all of
this other than of course,
the contribution to climate change
and making this planet
impossible to live on eventually,
is the fact that these
private equity firms take
out debt to do these investments.
And a lot of these private equity
firms are tied to pensions, so if
one of these investments go south,
who cares about the pensions
I mean,
they're certainly going to suffer
the consequences of that as well.
That's a whole different angle that
I do want to cover on the story in
more detail at a later date.
But we need to have a real
discussion about what's happening
with Bitcoin mining because it is
contributing to climate change, it
seems to be completely unchecked.
Private equity firms are doing more
than just buying up single family
homes and pricing Americans out of
the market.
I mean, they're also destroying
local communities and their
environment through the behavior
that they're engaging in.
But they don't care, there's very
little regulation around this.
And it's going to continue
happening unless we have
progressive politicians paying
close attention, because we already
know the corporate politicians,
whether they're Democrats or
Republicans just kind of look the
other way as this stuff happens.
So solidarity with the community of
the Seneca Lake community in
upstate New York,
they're going through this but
they're not the only ones.
This is a very real issue that does
need to be addressed and
unfortunately, it's just not
getting a lot of attention.
Ridiculous YouTube beefs apparently
drive up the views but, share this
video, show that you care about
what's happening with American
corporations, their greed, their
unwillingness to police themselves.
They'll never police themselves,
you need politicians to regulate,
and you need real investments in
renewable energy.
Otherwise, they're just going to
run rampant and
do whatever they want, that's what
we're seeing right now and it's
just absolutely sad and pathetic.