The battle for the soul of Seneca Lake in New York
Greenidge’s scalability is limited only by imagination. Shareholder message from Greenidge.
Burning dirty fossil fuels warming our water, killing our aquatic life and generating noise is completely antithetical to our way of life- (Seneca Lake Guardians)
...water, as a universal necessity for human life, should be venerated as precious and managed for the common good, instead of reduced to a ticker symbol that produces fees for the banking elite (David Z Morris, Fortune ).
Carved out of bedrock more than 10,000 years ago by glacial movement, Seneca Lake is the deepest freshwater lake east of the Mississippi River outside the Great Lakes.
The Lake’s surface area is just over 66 square miles, and its watershed is 457 square miles. The watershed overlaps portions of 40 municipalities, located within five New York counties: Chemung, Ontario, Schuyler, Seneca and Yates. When considering its size and volume, it is the largest lake contained in borders of one state.
Seneca Lake supports local, regional, and state economies. It is one of the largest and most attractive fishing destinations in the country and it is the center of New York's well known wine country.
Like other lakes Seneca Lake has challenges to be monitored, managed, and remediated in terms of pollutants, invasive species, and historically human activity. Still like the Finger Lakes generally its overall quality is good. However, this is not a stable situation with climate change and the resultant effects such as extreme weather events.
Seneca Lake's importance extends far beyond its borders in this regard. The Lake plays a critical role in terms of informing how we will look at climate change. For example, the Lake has a pronounced moderating influence on the air temperature around its periphery. Current studies show the role of deep water lakes like Seneca Lake is critical in not only monitoring climate change but also as a model for remediation.
Monitoring Seneca Lake also includes assessing the effects of industry. This engages economic and political actors with their own agendas, often driven by interests outside of local communities. At this time the threats evident in cryptocurrency operations and data storage in general are hot topics. One bitcoin operation in particular owned by Atlas Holding has been the focus of attention in terms of its potential impact on Seneca Lake.
Greenidge Generation Holdings, Inc. occupies an old coal plant on the shores of Seneca Lake. It is a fossil dependent operation that uses natural gas. It intends to expand its operation.
The corporation has defined itself to global investors as a hybrid hedge against the volitality of cryptocurrency. because it is a behind-the-grid power plant providing "clean energy for generations to come" . The corporation urges investors to not only invest in the "profitability of cryptocurrency markets but energy markets as well. As an additional hedge Greenidge offered blockchain services, which might be presented as a benign, even progressive entity or it can offer the opposite. Blockchains in general call for high energy use.
The Greenidge claim to investors is that with institutional backing, strategic industry partnerships, enterprise-level operational excellence, its power plant, sited on 150 acrees, will generate over 100MW of clean energy an hour. Its growth is only "limited by imagination."
In reality, Greenidge's" scalability" is limited by the reality that natural resources meeting basic needs are finite, such as clean water, unless you consider a get in and get out, boom or bust mentality.
The Greenidge mantra is that it will "firmly" stay within state and federal government limits (the village of Torey as a decision maker in fate of the Greenidge expansion echoed the same mantra). The problem is there doesn't appear to be any "the buck stops here." The problem is nothing is firm. Cryptocurrency production in general is a largely unregulated industry.
In terms of conserving and preserving natural resources like Seneca Lake, New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation (NYDEC) has serious limitation. The problem for advocates and local government officials seeking to protect Seneca Lake is that the State agency's track record and perhaps its capacity is spotty when it comes to compliance, meeting state mandates, policy development, and adequate staffing. Furthermore it operates under outdated laws.
There is also a stakeholder disconnect. As one example, while EPA procedure might call for public hearings when does this federal mandate come into conflict with local entities and/or New York's home rule offering counties some autonomy.
The NYDEC opted out of its inherent responsibility and passed the buck to the Village of Torey. Seneca Lake advocates claim that they were barred from the Village of Torey's decision making processes and that public participation was discouraged by the Board and requests for a moratorium were ignored.
The Board voted to allow the expansion of Greenidge at least partially based on the reasoning that they had limited jurisdiction and had to vote according to current laws.
This was an odd situation.
In weighing Greenidge's claim of clean energy it is questionable as to whether its claim in defense of expansion comes close to the environmental impact of Bitcoin or cryptocurrency in general. Waste is still waste and it is still toxic and the economic motive of more and more electronic hardware will exponetially increase waste that can threaten the quality of Seneca Lake's waters.
Given the significant contribution to the region and the State, the question of environmental impacts on Seneca Lake would have ideally reach far beyond the purview of a single local board representing one village as opposed to the vested interests of various stakeholders.
Stakeholders might have argued more effectively armed with New York State's goal of cleaner energy for example New York's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. Stakeholders that have already vested time and energy in advocating for the health of Seneca Lake were in line with the values and potential of public/private relationships who sought to protect and preserve the Lake in line with the National Heritage Act. This includes the wineries that strongly support economic growth in the region, public input, and the interest groups formed to protect the Lake.
Any assessment of Greenidge's expansion plan should have accounted for social and economic concerns that affect a broad range of stakeholders. Greenidge has nothing to offer job creation and at the same time it represents lost opportunity costs in terms of potential jobs in the region that can be associated with allowing its expansion including a focus on infrastructural needs that are increasingly attached to environmental concerns.
Finally, there is the critical global question of the actual value of water. Considering the climate impacts such as drought conditions in the West, how important is water anyway. Is our inventory of clean water more or less important then corporate beneficence to a small village.
The upshot of the Seneca Lake story to date is that the Greenidge expansion was approved. The now well-documented harm caused by cryptocurrency operations to grids and to natural resources globally and nationally apparently had little bearing on the decision to allow this expansion.
With the approval for an expansion the company's enterprises will grow exponentially in a cryptocurrency world that will shift an emphasis from bitcoin mining to transaction processes - more energy use.
But Greenidge is going to be "environmentally friendly". As proof the corporation will install a solar farm and contribute resources to projects that benefit the environment. But let's be clear, the historic thinking the corporation espouses - which implies that Seneca Lake is an infinite resource, along with lost opportunity costs in terms of local and more appropriate development, by purveyors of a volatile boom or bust energy draining mining industry is dangerous.
The story of Seneca Lake is precedential. Greenidge is not the only corporate interest around Seneca Lake. Other cryptocurrency and data driven companies are eyeing the region with its cheaper electricity and a viable water source. This will have further environmental costs for the benefit of a few.