A look at a fossil fuel power plant in NY that has been restarted to mine crypto, as NY considers a bill for placing a three-year moratorium on crypto mining
The lofty prices of cryptocurrencies have investors sinking money into electricity generation, risking a backlash Tweets: @brianspegele , @the_moviebob , @bcappelbaum , @ayanaeliza , @nkingofdc , @davidfickling , @ruskin147 , @libshipwreck , @dnvolz , @pekingmike , @carnage4life , @bradyqg , @alecstapp , @timcohn , @jyarow , @rjhintz , and @neerajka Tweets: Brian Spegele / @brianspegele : Across the country, old fossil fuel power plants are at risk of closing down as renewable energy grows. These bitcoin miners want to give them new life. My latest for @WSJ with @ceostroff https://www.wsj.com/... MovieBob Productions / @the_moviebob : This is the literal opposite of what digitalization was supposed to do to these industries. F***ing people... https://www.wsj.com/... Binyamin Appelbaum / @bcappelbaum : Reopening a coal-fired power plant for the purpose of mining bitcoin is just... wow. https://www.wsj.com/... Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson / @ayanaeliza : “In upstate New York, an idled coal plant has been restarted, fueled by natural gas, to mine #cryptocurrency. A once-struggling Montana coal plant is now scaling up to do the same.” But technology will saaaave us! 🙃 https://www.wsj.com/... Neil King / @nkingofdc : Incredible. The equivalent of Argentina's entire power consumption is now going to mine for bitcoin. We're polluting the earth to solve math problems. https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ David Fickling / @davidfickling : It's funny/infuriating that while @ARKInvest et al are spinning an impossible story about crypto mines as a key source of demand for low load-factor renewables, in the real world crypto mines are now a key source of demand for high load-factor fossil fuels. https://twitter.com/... Rory Cellan-Jones / @ruskin147 : https://www.wsj.com/... Hurrah for crypto! Helping promote green energy....oh, wait.. Librarianshipwreck / @libshipwreck : If you were reading a work of cyberpunk dystopian fiction and the author provided a literal description of Bitcoin you'd roll your eyes at the author for being too heavy handed... https://www.wsj.com/... Dustin Volz / @dnvolz : Across America, older fossil-fuel power plants are shutting down in favor of renewable energy. But some are getting a new lease on life—to mine bitcoin. https://www.wsj.com/... Mike Forsythe / @pekingmike : Investors in the Bitcoin miner restarting a Montana coal fired power plant include Blackrock and Renaissance Technologies per this super important @BrianSpegele piece. Didn't Blackrock's CEO make a pledge about not investing in coal just recently? https://twitter.com/... Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : Defunct coal plants being reopened to mine #Bitcoin is reversing the progress we've made in switching to renewables across the country. It's getting so bad that New York State is considering a 3 year ban cryptocurrency mining due to emissions concerns. https://www.wsj.com/... Brady Quirk-Garvan / @bradyqg : Not sure if it would be better for the environment to go buy a new Hummer and drive it across the state with the AC blasting and windows down or buy some bitcoin. Safe to say I won't be doing either anytime soon. https://twitter.com/... Alec Stapp / @alecstapp : The arguments for how crypto mining could benefit renewable energy make sense in theory, but in practice it seems Bitcoin at least is actually bringing fossil fuel power plants back online (h/t @Noahpinion): https://www.wsj.com/... Tim Cohn / @timcohn : The lofty prices of cryptocurrencies have investors sinking money into electricity generation, risking a backlash https://www.wsj.com/... Jay Yarow / @jyarow : We've all mostly accepted Bitcoin. But then you read a paragraph like this and you think, what are we doing here? https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/... Rich Hintz / @rjhintz : One site design is to produce at least 55 bitcoins/day by 1Q22, up from an average of 2/day using >100MW. 🙄 & “What is the difference between a data center processing for Amazon and a data center for bitcoin?” is an actual question? https://twitter.com/... Neeraj K. Agrawal / @neerajka : an important question might be “what was going to happen to this natural gas otherwise?” https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Upstate New York's cheap hydropower has been pulling in bitcoin speculators since at least 2018, when the region's industrial legacy made it a magnet for miners hunting low-cost electricity. What has changed is the direction of that trade: with crypto prices high, investors are no longer just seeking cheap power — they are buying the plants themselves, restarting a fossil-fuel generator that had been headed for retirement.
First-order effects
- The plant's owners have converted a stranded fossil-fuel asset into a revenue-producing bitcoin operation, extending its operating life on mining margins rather than electricity sales.
Second-order effects
- New York's proposed three-year moratorium would push capital toward states without such restrictions — the pattern already visible in Kentucky, which has emerged as a mining hub while drawing estimates of the highest crypto-mining CO2 output of any US state.
Third-order effects
- Mining's dependence on whatever grid it can access concentrates it in fragile jurisdictions — as shown when internet disruptions in Kazakhstan knocked out an estimated 15% of the world's miners — so regulatory pressure like New York's bill reshapes not just emissions but the global map of hash power.
The trend: Rising cryptocurrency prices are turning idle fossil-fuel plants into mining assets, and state energy regulators are becoming the primary brake on where that capital lands.