Don’t Let Cryptocurrency Pollute Carbon County

Feel free to directly copy and paste or edit Clean Air Council’s suggested comment below and email it to:

mwejkszner@pa.gov

Please also fill out the petition below so Clean Air Council can track your engagement.

Be sure to include your full name, address and phone number in your email to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

Comments are due December 28th, 2024

Subject: 13-00003

Panther Creek Power Operating, LLC (Panther Creek) has operated in Nesquehoning, Carbon County since 1992. Bitfarms now owns Panther Creek, which plans to completely stop sending electricity from this facility to the power grid while still consuming far more electricity than the plant is capable of generating. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) should not renew Panther Creek’s air pollution permit because the facility no longer qualifies as a “Electric Utility Steam Generating Unit” which serves the public good by generating power for the grid. Only if DEP can prove Panther Creek sends an adequate amount of electricity to the energy grid should DEP allow the facility to retain that classification.

The Clean Air Act defines an “Electric Utility Steam Generating Unit” as “any steam electric generating unit that is constructed for the purpose of supplying more than one-third of its potential electric output capacity and more than 25 MW electrical output to any utility power distribution system for sale.” (ecfr.gov/current/title-40/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-60/subpart-A/section-60.2). Because the plant uses most —and soon all, according to Bitfarms’ plans— of the electricity it produces to generate cryptocurrency, rather than selling electricity to the energy grid, DEP cannot legally permit the facility as an “electrical steam generating unit.” Since Panther Creek does not supply “more than one-third of its potential electric output capacity and more than 25 MW electrical output to any utility power distribution system for sale,” it cannot be permitted as a “Electric Utility Steam Generating Unit.” DEP must require Panther Creek to reapply for this air pollution permit under a classification that matches its actual use. DEP could consider evaluating whether it qualifies as a waste incinerator, which would require the plant to conduct increased heavy metal and air toxics testing. DEP should decide if the absence of any public benefit, grouped with the likely public harm from the facility, merits denying any permit that does not drastically reduce the facility’s air pollution.

I thank DEP for issuing Panther Creek a June 2024 violation for using dangerous electrical infrastructure to support its current Bitcoin mining (Violation ID: 8191111). Nonetheless, DEP needs to exercise far more oversight regarding this facility’s electricity use. 

Bitfarms has released plans to repurpose the facility’s electrical substation to consume electricity, with a current capacity to consume 80 MW of electricity from the grid in addition to the 80 MW the Panther Creek facility is capable of generating. Bitfarms has a goal of acquiring another 320 MW of “additional potential PJM import power capacity.”

These plans are detailed here: sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1812477/000121390024071531/ea021201207-425_bitfarms.htm. 

Bitfarms stated that, “As far as we can tell no one has ever contemplated this kind of strategy and data center configuration. It is so novel that there is actually nothing in the PJM and FERC regulations that can be applied towards this structure.”

Please appropriately regulate this facility that is attempting to operate in a way that current power plant standards have not anticipated. Enforcing the Clean Air Act’s definition of an “Electric Utility Steam Generating Unit” is essential to protecting Carbon County from completely unnecessary air pollution that is not related to the production of electricity for public consumption.