The New York state Assembly passed a bill on Tuesday evening that would place a moratorium on new bitcoin-mining facilities that require an air permit for burning fossil fuels on site. The bill now goes to the state Senate, which passed a similar bill last year, and then would need to be signed by Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has not publicly taken a position on the proposal.
Although this measure is the first of its kind in any state, it will almost certainly not be the last, because the energy-intensive process of mining cryptocurrency is drawing increasing scrutiny for its contribution to climate change. A number of states have set ambitious goals for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change — New York aims for an 85% reduction by 2050 — and environmentalists say allowing unrestricted crypto mining is incompatible with meeting those goals.
“We strongly support this legislation,” Liz Moran, New York policy advocate for the environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice, told Yahoo News. “It takes an incredibly reasonable approach to this emerging industry and concern with the energy consumption of this industry.”
Mining for bitcoin — by far the largest cryptocurrency by market cap — uses staggering amounts of electricity: Last year, Cambridge University researchers calculated that bitcoin consumes approximately 121.36 terawatt-hours annually. That’s more electricity than is used by the 45-million-person country of Argentina, or by Google, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft combined. Last November, a study by the trading education platform Forex Suggest found that just to offset the carbon emissions of bitcoin and ethereum — the second-most-popular cryptocurrency — would require…
