108° 🚨

I can't stop thinking about 108°. I recently learned that the Greenridge power plant in Dresden, NY—currently operating as a bitcoin mining facility—is sourcing ~glacial~ lake water to cool its servers, which it then returns to the ~glacial~ lake at a maximum temperature of 108°. (In the winter, the maximum returned water temperature is 86°, as if that's a consolation!)

It is unfathomable to me that there are people who genuinely believe (?) (or at least genuinely lie) that this is ~fine~. Especially now, since every day more of us know what 108° feels like. (Not pleasant. Bad for humans. Bad for trout.)

If you've been around the Finger Lakes, you know that lake source cooling is nothing new. The concept is, basically, pulling extremely cold water from glacial lakes (here, that's 435'-deep Cayuga Lake and 618'-deep Seneca Lake), and piping it toward whatever needs to cool down.

If you ask proponents, they'll tell you what a wonderful tool lake source cooling is. The many millions of kilowatt hours of electricity saved, the emissions reduced.

They will also offer you a chart like this:

Great, you might say, we're reducing greenhouse emissions by using innovative technologies. But then how do we square this extreme disruption to the ecosystem we live in and benefit from?

You don't have to be an environmental scientist to observe or understand that, in the chart above, the water returned to the lake is 10-15° warmer after it has been used to cool whatever the heck it was asked to cool. It's almost too on-the-nose: human behavior causing warming in a natural environment. I rest my case.

I was in third grade, growing up in Ithaca, when lake source cooling at Cornell was first widely opposed and then approved. Now, we swim in lakes with algal blooms caused by our air and water temperatures rising. Those temps are rising, of course, because of human-made climate change behaviors, including Lake! Source! Cooling! (Which Cornell is still using.)

Now, one lake over, the situation has worsened, because Greenridge, a seldom-used coal-fired power plant (previously operating at 6% capacity), is now converted to natural gas and running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to... (just think about how dumb this sounds) mine Bitcoin.

Strategically and ironically omitted from the narrative on lake source cooling is, of course, ~the lake~! It's extremely ~us~ (read: white colonizers) to want to pillage even further the resources we've stolen.

I'm embarrassed that we somehow need to make the case against this practice. I'm also heartbroken for our waters, for the creatures that live in them, and, selfishly, for myself, on lazy, sweltering summer days when I want to Cool Off and the lake feels... Warm.

To be clear, Greenridge's behavior isn't new. Seneca Lake isn't the first to be threatened. Since their origins, cryptocurrency companies have been flocking to Upstate New York to avail themselves of our cheap energy sources and empty industrial buildings.

Cryptocurrency, the techno-utopian e-commerce promise, has been, since its inception, both broadly unregulated and broadly appealing—to everyone from Libertarians to Gwyneth goddamn Paltrow. But at the same time that it's warming our glacial waters, Bitcoin (or as I affectionately call it, Shitcoin) itself is melting down.

Proponents tout cryptocurrency's ability to "rise above market uncertainty" (that's me, quoting an ad that runs on NYT's The Daily), but recent months have demonstrated anything but.

The recipe is as follows:

• Take [however many] currencies imagined by enterprising entrepreneurs.
• Add [millions of] ordinary peoples' crypto assets, mix well.
• Let assets rest in high-powered server farms until they both ruin the environment (see above) and tax our electric grid, driving up utility costs substantially (as this study determined, by hundreds of millions of dollars yearly for small businesses and individuals).
• Return mixture to entrepreneurs willing to gamble those assets for their own gain.
• Place in a large bowl of steep selloffs in uncertain times.

For an industry lauded as an alternative to the stock market, and which appeals disproportionately to unbanked and low-income households, this sure looks a lot like oligarchy capitalism.

And since we know that cryptocurrency's failings include both environmental degradation and economic plunderings, we have a familiar theme: rich people convincing poor people to "do what's best for them" (read: trade in cryptocurrencies), when in reality, that "best" is destroying both their savings accounts and their ecosystem.

There is good news, though—and I apologize for burying this lead.

The good news is that people are writing about this (thank your local journalists!). There are complexities beyond what I've outlined in this piece, and I encourage you to read more (here and here and here).

The other good news is that good people are doing what they do best in the face of powerful corporations and capitalism: organizing. Here's how you can join in.

And if you don't identify as an organizer, or a "political person," but you either care about me or this essay has made you ~feel something~ (so presumptuous of me, I know), then might I suggest a strategic rebrand of "organizing" as:

• Caring for our planet
• Doing a nice thing for your pal Beal
• Taking a break from watching Hulu
• Tending to your corner of the universe
• Doing just one thing
• Supporting Seneca Lake trout populations
• Building community in uncertain times

Nice. Glad you're still here, _(organizer). Here's the scoop:

FIRST: The New York State Legislature recently passed (!) a moratorium on cryptocurrency mining in early June—but Gov. Kathy Hochul has yet to sign it. You can encourage her to.

(Why hasn't she signed it? GREAT QUESTION. You should ask her. Until we hear directly, it's worth examining her campaign's donor rolls, which are nicely padded with crypto pros bros.) It's also worth noting that Greenridge, because it's already in operation, would be exempt from this moratorium, and I personally think that's horse shit.

SECOND: At the end of June, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation rejected the air permits that Greenridge needed to operate, indicating that these plants did not meet New York's climate goals—big win.

Here's the catch: Greenridge gets to appeal that decision, and can keep operating while the appeal is pending.

The permit rejection and Greenridge's statement in response are both big on emissions. Those are very important. Greenhouse gas emissions are, like, some of my least favorite things.

But let's not forget about the lake!

Let's not forget about 108°, and how these crypto-nightmares are cooling their servers—while the world around them burns—with sacred lake waters from 600' below the ground. The Seneca Lake Guardian, will be helping us, and our elected officials, remember. Which brings me to:

THIRD: Donate!

It is easy, because everything sucks, to feel hopeless. One of the things I've been saying a lot, to anyone who will listen, is that I'm worried that Extracurriculars will just become me, angry, writing, angrily.

But instead, if you can, think of taking action as an act of love. For the trout. For the languor of a day spent at the lake. For the friends you keep close, standing together on the shore. For this breathtaking and broken world.

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