Democratic lawmakers ask federal agencies to crack down on crypto mining

Photo by MARK FELIX/AFP /AFP via Getty Images

On Friday, Elizabeth Warren and other Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to two federal regulators, urging them to take action on the explosion of Bitcoins in the US

The letter was sent to the heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy after it was found that a small group of people use a lot of energy. Lawmakers want the agencies to require the sharing of data on energy use and emissions by cryptocurrencies.

According to the letter, seven of the biggest crypto-mining companies in the US have the ability to use over 1 gigawatt of electricity. It is almost enough to power all the homes in Houston. There are no federal measures in place to capture a complete picture of the environmental impact of the recent boom in US CRYPTO- MINING

China is cracking down on the practice of scurvy-mining in 2021. The US is the biggest hub for mining the digital currency. The data centers have specialized hardware racing to solve complex equations in order to verify transactions. Pollution is caused by the huge amount of electricity that is consumed by computing power.

With abundant hydropower in China replaced by coal and gas-derived electricity from the US grid, moving from China to the US made thebitcoin network even dirtier.

policymakers are worried about the impact on the country's climate change goals and on electricity bills Electricity prices in New York have gone up because of the practice. In Plattsburgh, NY, residents saw their utility bills go up by up to $300 in the winter of 2018, after the setting up of a mining camp nearby.

The New York State legislature passed a two-year moratorium on new permits for fossil fuel power plants. The state has taken regulatory actions to discourage mining even though the bill hasn't been signed into law. In June, New York denied a renewed air permit to the Greenidge Generating Station due to the fact that it would be inconsistent with the state's greenhouse gas emission limits.

Greenidge was one of the companies that Warren and other Democrats sent queries to back in January. The new letter states that Greenidge was responsible for almost 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the course of a year.

The impact of cryptocurrencies in the US is much larger than what the letter describes. The companies didn't give full and complete information in response to the questions.

There are other clues as to how much energy companies are buying up. After a brief power failure this week, the mining industry in Texas freed up about a gig of energy. In response to an appeal from the grid operator to conserve energy, the companies reduced operations.

The hunger for energy is increasing. A spokesman for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said in an email this week that there are over 27 gigawatts of load that is being worked on. It is an impossibly large load to add to the grid in a short period of time.

According to a letter to the EPA and Department of Energy, the results of an investigation show that cryptocurrencies account for a significant amount of carbon emissions. It was signed by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Jeff Merkley (D-OR).