New York power plant sets up its own Bitcoin mining operation, with ~7K crypto miners, using “behind-the-meter” electricity to generate ~5.5 Bitcoins per day
"zero cost". https://twitter.com/... Harpreet Singh / @harry_jerry : This is a good idea for power plants with a surplus https://twitter.com/... Seth Weintraub / @llsethj : This is disgusting. Cuomo's NY peaker gas plant is now running 24/7/365 to mine bitcoin. How many megatons of CO2 is bitcoin pumping into our atmosphere? Only way to eventually stop this is a carbon tax and I hope this burning fuel for bitcoin hastens it. https://twitter.com/... Alistair Milne / @alistairmilne : This was predictable ... all electricity generators have surplus power they can't sell ... until Bitcoin https://twitter.com/... @cryptosbatman : We will see most power producers mining Bitcoin using their excess power. Why waste electricity when you can mine $BTC? To stay competitive they will have to mine Bitcoin, if not they won't survive for long. What we see here is just the beginning of a new era. #BITCOIN #Crypto https://twitter.com/... Chris Blec / @chrisblec : Will every power plant eventually just start mining? Why wouldn't they, right? https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the endpoint of an arc that started in 2018, when a remote corner of New York drew an influx of Bitcoin speculators chasing cheap upstate electricity. The difference now is vertical integration: instead of miners renting the plant's power, the plant itself deploys ~7,000 miners on behind-the-meter electricity, capturing the full margin between generation cost and mined Bitcoin (~5.5 BTC/day).
The move also lands in the middle of a live political fight. By 2021 the same pattern — a fossil-fuel plant restarted for crypto — had prompted New York to weigh a three-year moratorium on crypto mining, while miners elsewhere responded to environmentalist pressure by partnering with nuclear plant owners instead.
First-order effects
- The plant converts surplus electricity it could not sell into ~5.5 BTC per day, making itself its own highest-paying customer and cutting the grid out of the transaction entirely.
- Critics immediately reframe the story around emissions: a gas peaker now runs around the clock for mining rather than peak demand, putting CO2 output at the center of the debate.
Second-order effects
- Every generator with unsellable surplus power now has a template for monetizing it onsite, as Alistair Milne's reaction notes — expect other plant owners to copy the behind-the-meter setup.
- Regulators get a concrete target: the optics of fuel burned solely for Bitcoin strengthen the case for New York's proposed moratorium and, as Seth Weintraub argues, for carbon pricing as the only lever that reaches this activity.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, mining capacity migrates from independent operators to integrated generation owners who control both the electrons and the machines — reshaping the industry around whoever owns power assets.
- Crypto's energy footprint becomes a standing item in climate policy, pushing jurisdictions toward explicit rules on fossil-powered mining even as miners chase cleaner sources like nuclear to defuse the criticism.
The trend: Electricity generators are becoming their own best crypto customers, with behind-the-meter mining turning surplus and stranded power into a default revenue outlet.