Bitcoin Forum

Among the proposals, the group of eight organizations requested the Environmental Protection Agency subject PoW mining firms to “stringent reviews” around operating permits.

As the crypto space continues to grow with many investors in the United States, industry leaders and lawmakers have stepped up to address issues around financial risks as well as the potential impact on the environment from Bitcoin (BTC) mining. In April, a group of 23 members of the House of Representatives sent a letter to the EPA saying the “rapidly expanding cryptocurrency industry needs to be held accountable” and alleging “cryptocurrency mining is poisoning our communities.”

The Bitcoin Mining Council responded with its own letter written by MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor to EPA administrator Michael Regan on May 2, claiming that the group of lawmakers had mistaken several key issues. The industry leader placed the alleged misconception on “power generating facilities” causing pollution, not BTC mining itself.


The New York State government is currently considering a bill that could place a two-year ban on all new PoW mining facilities in the state using carbon-based fuel to power their operations. Both the Sierra Club and Seneca Lake Guardian have pushed back against mining firm Greenidge Generation Holdings’ operations at the state’s Seneca Lake.

(Source: Cointelegraph (https://cointelegraph.com/news/environmental-groups-urge-us-government-to-take-action-on-crypto-miners))

Ahh yes, another letter based on the "research" of Alex de Vries, the individual who is employed by large banks who are pushing for CBDCs and receives payments from these large banks to write bullshit articles disparaging bitcoin, based on erroneous data, false data, or sometimes no data at all and just pure conjecture on his part. His "research" would be laughed out of most academic circles - biased, misleading, and sometimes entirely fabricated - but there seems to be no end to the number of people who will just believe anything they read and then write to Congress about it. Vries is literally on the payroll of a bank who wants bitcoin to fail. Believing his nonsense is the same as believing all the "research" which showed that smoking isn't bad for you, funded and published by the Tobacco Industry. ::)

Here are some links which explain why this is all complete bullshit:
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/bitcoin-energy-per-transaction-metric-is-misleading
https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/elon-musk-bitcoin-environment-wrong

I think that environmental organizations should do their research or review existing research (not biased sponsored shit, but legit things) before putting up proposals. What are the most impactful areas in terms of climate change? Which are the easiest to change potentially? Which can be reduced rather than fully abolished? Which can be restructured or abandoned for the sake of better options? It's best to tackle big industries and make policies that would affect many agents on the market, rather than crack down on particular things, such as crypto mining IMO. I hope that there will be enough counteraction in the US.

Once again, they are only taking action against pollution sources which are "easy" to stop but whose total contribution to global pollution is very negligible, while ignoring the really big pollution emitters which are much more difficult to solve: factories.

You can't hide from the fact that old-fashioned 20th century industrial factories are one of the leading causes of pollution, because they were built during a time when nobody cared about this problem.

I know it sounds harsh but new energy-efficient factories must be built in their place and the old ones decommissioned, even if it comes at a cost to the bottom lines of those businesses (but hey, they don't seem to have a problem with that, hurtig the bottom lines of mining firms as they're already doing).

No no no, you don't get it. Oil companies, mining companies, the military industry complex, plastic manufacturers, companies responsible for deforestation and dumping pollution directly in to rivers - these are all fine, because they sponsor our politicians, fund their campaigns, take them out for nice dinners, and so on. Bitcoin doesn't do these things, and so it is obviously by far the worst polluter in the world and must be relentless targeted, despite being a completely irrelevant and negligible fraction of even one of the companies belonging to the previously mentioned categories.

You want to completely offset the entire carbon dioxide production of the global bitcoin network several times over? Stop leaving your TV and cable box on stand by. That's it. I'd like to see anyone say the same thing about Exxon or Aramco. ::)

Lol! It's hilarious! It seems only crypto mining companies produce pollution and no one else does that. The heavy industries generate way more pollution than all crypto mining put together. But I believe the environmentalists are going crazy because most of the mining operations are for personal benefits rather than public benefits. I believe that's the main pain point for them.

If some countries seek to ban mining operations, there will be other countries who will open up for migration. Crypto is a serious business now!

And what about the banking system?

If they're sensitized about public benefit, they should begin a shut down campaign against the entire financial sector, which is by the way, one of the worst regarding this matter. Bitcoin uses energy for mining, while the banking system requires ATMs, credit/debit cards, transports, money issuance, skyscrapers for central and commercial banks, and these are off the top of my head.

Michael Saylor has the right approach, we are talking about creating energy and not using energy that is the problem. Not like miners are picking coals to produce energy specifically or something.

Using energy is a right, you should be able to use it however you want and that is fine, the problem is that we are talking about something that is rare in this case, and if you do not end up understanding that you should not use fossil fuels or gas or coal or any other similar terrible to world energy sources, then the whole world will be better.

We will get there, specially with this Russian sanction deal it's getting faster, but we are not there yet, focus on them first.

I do not see this as a big problem at all, even if the leading states ban bitcoin mining. More than 19 million bitcoins out of 21 million have already been mined. Bitcoin may well do without the remaining two million. In addition, in our world there will always be nooks and crannies where bitcoin will be mined with any restrictions.
But in general, states can prohibit the mining of cryptocurrencies that use the PoW algorithm. They are not interested in a decentralized cryptocurrency. It's easier than radically restructuring their energy-intensive industries.

I don't really know the content of the letter or the background of the initiators and their real intentions. I am a strong Bitcoin advocate, but nevertheless there are developments in the USA regarding miners (also in other parts of the world) that I absolutely do not support, such as the fact that the Hardin coal-fired power plant in Montana was supposed to be closed, but is now still being operated because of Bitcoin mining. This is an absolutely alarming development in terms of the environment. If that's part of the content of the letter, I don't think it's a bad thing.

Bitcoin industry is not polluted at the level haters talk about it. It is not true if I say Bitcoin mining does not cause any issue for the environment but if we compare it with other industries, it is better.

So why do the worse industries try to attack a better one, namely Bitcoin?

• Debunking the "Bitcoin is an environmental disaster" argument. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5325350.0)
• Endthefud (Energy) (https://endthefud.org/energy)

Sure, go and focus on the easy ones, as usual. We've got people flying around and testing rocket fuels every day for hours on end, for fun and personal gain and no global benefit, burning far more than miners, who are actually providing a much-needed service.

Same old story every time, don't they all get tired of fighting the wrong enemies?

I think this is a key point, actually. I think it insane that people spend huge amounts of energy on the manufacture and transport of TVs and cable boxes, and all the energy they use, to watch some of the most mind numbingly stupid content produced, such as anything involving the Kardashians. Not to mention all the energy the Kardashians use filming their TV series. Yet you never see me trying to ban the Kardashians or ban people from using energy on things I think are pointless.

Energy has a cost, and if you pay that cost, you can use that energy however you like.

You misunderstand how bitcoin mining works. It isn't just used for generating new coins. Without mining, then there would be no bitcoin transactions.

Elon Musk criticized bitcoin's energy use when he was trying to shill Dogecoin. You know, the same man who literally fired a car in to space on a rocket for the lulz. ::)

Something similar happened in the EU relatively recently - ESMA’s vice chairman Erik Thedéen has released an official statement (https://deposit-withdraw.com/esmas-vice-chair-urges-for-sustainable-crypto-mining-methods/) calling out for measures to be taken on crypto mining energy usage. Bitcoin mining, especially, has become a national issue for Sweden, Erik’s native nation. The Swede has asserted that crypto mining effectively intensifies climate change.
I wonder if the two events are connected or not. Thoughts?

I think I might not have enough time or character space in this forum to list out the reasons why this guy has no right to criticize anything about Bitcoin power use (and I remember it very well).

Like you said, someone who fires car into space, who tests hundreds of rockets every day and burning up all kinds of unimaginable numbers of fuel drums, who builds millions of electric batteries that after 5 years cannot be dumped but anyway are dumped in poor Africa because that is where we send our poisonous dead gadgets.

He has a right to opinion, but no right to demand anything.

Man I forgot how much I hate Elon and all these shilled personalities of the world who use Bitcoin to gain even more fame.

I find it very hilarious that these organizations tend to focus more on the pollution that cryptocurrency mining has effected but they chose to ignore other pollutants that are significantly hazardous to the environment. For example, there are tons of oil companies, minings, deforestation, and other huge establishments that garner significant damage to the environment, yet they only focus on the small guys.

Though like some have mentioned, this research came from a person who is highly questionable in their researches. That is why, I doubt that these environmental groups would do any damage to these crypto miners.

stepwilli made the point I was thinking reading down the thread. The way Bitcoin mining
is being demonised would almost make out that miners are creating electricity themselves
by burning hazardous waste like plastic, car tyres, used engine oil and polystyrene at
the backs of their premesis' and polluting every river they are close to.

Miners to my mind are plugged into the electrical grid, they are consumers of electricity,
from the same source as every other consumer from household to industrial.

The finger needs to be pointed at the creators and suppliers of grid energy who use
and burn predominantly fossil fuels, not the consumer, we can only use what is provided.

Fortunately for us, environmentalists have limited governmental reach - they may be able to talk a lot, but hardly anybody would take them seriously - this has a flipside. The heavy industries such as oil and metals (let's lump data centers in here for a moment) spend billions of dollars lobbying governments - particularly US. senators - to ignore these demands or to make favorable regulations for the heavy industries. Not that crypto mining has that kind of reach, but it does provide for it a shelter to stay under, for now.

Before they can dabble into the cryptocurrency zone they should first fix the disaster menace from the government petroleum and natural resources mining that have caused alot of hazards to the environment and living existence, I just believe some kind of people or set of low thinkers could just come over the internet talking about what does not make sense or meaning, issues like this has already been tackled several times on the forum and were well discussed such a way that it is understandable that bitcoin mining does not contribute in any for to the environmental disaster.

This groups is just making a move to get recognized because even the said regulation they are insinuating is already a bye gone issue, because tax is being paid by those mining companies, it's had been better they divert their curiosity from bitcoin back to government if the they truly want a change.

No one with any sense listens to anything Musk has to say in regards to bitcoin. Most of his followers are either newbies to this space, get-rich-quickers, or scammers looking to cash in whatever nonsense he tweets next. He manipulates his followers and shills some of the worst altcoins in history to make himself profit, and idiots just follow along blindly. His opinions on bitcoin are irrelevant.

Not quite accurate. We know from global studies and data that bitcoin mining is one of the greenest industries on the planet, using a far higher percentage of renewable energy than other industries. Bitcoin miners have the advantage that they can set up nearly anywhere, don't need all the expensive infrastructure that other industries need, don't need to be near a population base, and so on. They can go wherever renewable energy is, utilizing energy which would otherwise be wasted and subsidizing renewable projects which would otherwise be unprofitable and therefore not exist.

Of course, I should know this because Saylor is constantly tweeting about it.

Its just a pity that info is omitted when reported on.

I really do not understand all these big noise about crypto being not so green. The reality is that we are as green as it gets, think about the cash world, those are papers and usually made from trees that we need in order to survive. If cash has gone so much and for so long, then crypto could go on as well because it is proven that cash didn't kill the world, so why would crypto do that?

I am not sure what the math behind this is, but I am 100% sure that there are some people out there who cares about the world "so much" that they are basically getting paid to just say bat shit crazy things to keep the world a "better" place according to them.

Definitely the case in Southeast Asia, where we more or less have the same electricity cost models since we all run on a mix of coal/hydro. You register either as a residential or industrial user, the latter gets a far higher rate -- last I checked about 5 times more than a residential user, and it increases with more usage, and with more hours of daily use -- a miner presumably runs 24/7 and will pay the highest tariffs.

It would be impossible to cheat as well since their usage would show up in a heartbeat on any power grid. Residential consumption in Southeast Asia per HH is extremely low considered on a global scale, but industrially, it can be very high compared to a global scale. These guys will clamp down hard and then steamroll your rigs (literally (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/19/malaysian-police-steamroll-1point25-million-worth-of-bitcoin-mining-rigs.html), as I shared last year).

In fact, because the tariffs are much higher for industrial versus residential, most energy-intensive businesses don't plug in but try to subsidize with solar, and we even have special natural gas turbines (Liquified Natural Gas is our cheapest source of fuel, 5% price of gasoline for cleaner burning).

I don't know any miners personally, but I definitely recall several times even in my home town hobbyists trying to work out how to run these gas generators, with solar to produce very cheap electricity  -- the issues in our climate, so close to the equator, is humidity, heat, and of course, noise (the least of the issues, but it's still unwanted attraction).

I say the same as others have mentioned, even if plugged into the grid, they pay a different and more expensive rate, so are more likely to be using alternative cheaper energy. Solar I guess is the most popular answer in all the parts of the world where mining is popular (US, Asia, Africa). Europe too expensive and not enough sun I guess  :D

I wish I could agree with you much more but hands up I admit I probably go to the bad sections of the forum from time to time and there's just a lot of accounts who pay attention or get excited by Elon. These I have to say with a kind heart aren't scammers or newbies but naive I guess is the word.

Excited when Elon shoots rockets to moon, when random micronation adopts Bitcoin, etc.

The main problem is with mining of crypto using non-renewable sources of energy, but at present, miners are changing their source of energy to solar or other sources.
But the government should take some serious actions instead of blabbering about saving the environment.

I really think that mining BTC is not a serious problem for the environment, we have much more problems with other pollutants that do not bring any benefit in return.

Suppose they have made the government take action for these miners, how are they going to regulate the ones in China which even when the  government bans it, are doing underground?

Let's say the governments are working together to fight miners. I'm already seeing this to happen when miners are going to ask for permits before they can mine. This will make BTC centralized and in the end, its the government itself will be mining BTC which they could exclude transactions to get through.

This has been talk of everyone in the energy sector, we shouldn't look at it that way. When people want to save the world and drop the usage of energy or producing bad methods for energy (petrol, gas etc) people ended up talking about "what about china and how they pollute the world!!!" so much and consider it an unfair economic disadvantage when they can pollute but people in the USA can't that it sounds a lot like "they are killing the world for money, we should kill the earth for money too!!" to me.

Just produce clean energy and then keep using bitcoin miners, we should not stop using energy by stopping mining, we should produce that energy in a clean way, much better method.

Unfortunately, there are so many pro-environment groups that will never accept reasons or will never change course once they are focusing on a certain industry like Bitcoin so for them either the government make Bitcoin mining illegal or we are doomed towards the end of the world as we know it. And it can be impossible for anybody to convince them otherwise as theirs can be likened to being part of a religious cult. And you can find so many of them right there in New York.

I just love it when the Banking "shills" and "FUD" spreaders gets a blood nose from the real facts! They say, if you want to hit someone, you will find a stick to do it ....and this is very true for Bitcoin. The problem is..... the group that are dishing out the punishment... have a lot of skeletons in their own  closet.  ;)

How can Banker shills attack Bitcoin's energy use, if the money they are distributing to people are being tainted with pollution and emissions and environmental damage from cotton farming ...destruction of trees and also Nickel, copper and Zinc mining.  ::)

So the 23 house members that sent out the letter were all democrats, of course.

They've adopted a wild "green" energy policy platform which is anti-oil and gas. So even if crypto usage were to be relatively small compared to other payment processors, they'd still demonize it because it might contribute slightly to global emissions. They'll describe bitcoin using pejorative talking points, none of which make any sense.

Green energy lobby is powerful in the U.S -- they're not needed. A few radical environmentalists in congress is enough, they don't need to be paid off.

I am almost sure the environmental group is sponsored to engage in this action. The environmental group refuse to see the "log of wood" in their eyes but were able to see "the speck of dust" in another's eye. That is the way to describe this scenario. The world is faced with serious environmental pollutions from industries including nuclear waste, that are, IMO,1000% more hazardous when compared to energy pollutions from generating power used in mining Bitcoin. But these wastes continue to be tolerated in our environment because of some royalties they pay to government. Nothing serious is done about these wastes. Our ocean are filled with oil pollution, etc. yet they are just treated with kids glove.

However, there are efforts to use solar in mining Bitcoin, such technology should be encouraged by all crytpto enthusiasts. There are other green energy alternatives, like Dams, Wind energy, battery, that can be adopted to power Bitcoin mining. If government mean well, they should rather encourage the use of these eco-friendly alternatives.

To have Bitcoin, is to have your own bank with no third party encroachment. Proof of Work (Bitcoin algorithm) is a lot more secure, decentralized and not easily manipulated, when compared to Proof-of-Stake that somewhat have some level of centralization. IMO, the US government is making effort to have some level of control on crypto.