This is part of our series about Technology and Climate Change. Read part 2 of the series, about Data Center Alley in Loudoun County, Virginia, here. Read part 1 of the series, about xAI in Memphis, Tennessee, here.
On a fall day in October 2021, Molly Holdeman heard from a neighbor that a cryptocurrency company planned to build a new data center in a field directly across the street from her daughter’s elementary school in Greenville, North Carolina. When she realized that public meetings on the project were scheduled to start just a few days later, Molly and her fellow parents were stunned. They knew very little about crypto, but enough to be concerned about an industrial facility near a school. “It was terrifying,” she says. “So we just sprang into action. First we had to learn about crypto! And then we started getting the word out and somehow built momentum.”
At the first public event, Molly’s neighbors showed up armed with questions for the crypto company. This was just the beginning of a long saga in which one North Carolina community untangled how, exactly, a Minnesota-based company had made inroads with their city officials and, critically, what the environmental and health effects of a crypto data center might be, especially considering its proximity to schoolchildren.
But it’s no longer an isolated story. As cryptocurrency surges in popularity, fueled by the Trump administration’s staunch support of digital assets, other communities around the country are facing similar challenges and learning curves as they contend with large new data centers, increased fossil fuel emissions, stress on the power grid, noise pollution, and more.
Tell Administrator Zeldin: Cutting Climate Pollution Is One of EPA’s Most Important Jobs
Crypto 101
Buying and selling crypto coins or tokens is similar to trading stocks, but that’s pretty much all the average person knew about it back in 2021. As Molly and her neighbors discovered, in the most basic terms, cryptocurrency is a digital currency. The big difference between crypto and, say, the U.S. dollar, is that crypto functions independently from governments or banks. It relies on unique, coded algorithms to encrypt data to allow people to buy and spend—and importantly, determine supply and value.
For some people, this is amply confusing. Factor in too that cryptocurrency is based on something called blockchain, which are shared databases that store and verify information in a secure way. Some experts have tried to demystify blockchain by likening it to a Google spreadsheet, but maintained by decentralized networks of computers in data centers worldwide. These computers are sometimes called miners or validators.
There are several types of crypto, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and meme coins. Bitcoin, the first crypto, is a fairly recent entity—it was first mined in 2009—but the industry already accounts for up to 2.3% of U.S. electricity consumption. This exponential growth in power use is a result of cryptomining’s extremely energy-intensive processes like mining, which requires powerful computer processors to validate transactions and add new blocks to the blockchain.
To maximize their number of processors and time spent mining, companies are racing to build new crypto data centers and convert warehouses, factories, and power plants across the U.S., including the one across the street from a school in North Carolina. This can stress local power grids and potentially lead to higher electricity rates for customers.
Crypto’s climate and health costs
Crypto mine owners seek out the cheapest source of energy available to stay competitive. This frequently means opting for the cheapest and dirtiest energy over cleaner energy sources, which leads to more fossil fuel emissions and delays progress toward decarbonization. A recent study by Harvard researchers found that the 34 largest Bitcoin mines in the U.S. consumed a third more electricity than the city of Los Angeles, and the vast majority of that electricity came from fossil fuels. It also found that 1.9 million people were exposed to higher levels of PM2.5, a.k.a. soot pollution, because of cryptomining. This pollution is linked to higher risk of cancer, heart disease, dementia, and other diseases. E-waste from cryptomining is also a big issue, as hardware becomes obsolete or gets left behind when companies abandon facilities.
But what people tend to notice most when a new crypto data center opens is excessive noise and vibrations. Because the processors must maintain a certain temperature to function efficiently, they require loud fans and other cooling methods operating around the clock. “Neighbors couldn’t even sit outside,” says Dr. Treva Gear, an organizer in Adel, Georgia, and founder of Concerned Citizens of Cook County, about a local mine. “They had to double-insulate their homes!” Across the country in Texas, a lawsuit filed by Earthjustice on behalf of a group of Granbury residents living near a Bitcoin mine last year details sustained harm to the community, citing health impacts such as permanent hearing loss, migraines, tinnitus, and vertigo.
And it is not just humans who are affected. New York Assemblymember Dr. Anna R. Kelles, who sponsored the nation’s first partial ban on cryptomining, which went into effect for two years in 2022, says noise disruption impacts pollinator species, and if lake water is used to generate electricity, it can result in algae blooms and other harmful effects on aquatic life. “If all of our land is pockmarked with industries like cryptocurrency mining, we’re crippling our ability to use natural resources to stabilize and feed our population, because farming requires robust ecosystems,” she says.
Because New York state is one of the largest economies in the world and one of the most natural-resource-intensive states in the country, Dr. Kelles believes New York’s partial ban can serve as a model for others—especially if more cryptomining data is made available. “One of the big things that we all collectively need to demand are the findings from the delayed EIS [environmental impact statement] on the impact of cryptocurrency mining on New York’s ability to reach our climate goals,” she says.
Organizers taking action
Lack of data and transparency from local officials and crypto companies is frustrating but also helped spur Molly and Dr. Gear to take action. They both bemoan a scarcity of community input during complex regulatory and zoning maneuvering in their individual states. “Backdoor deals are being made behind closed doors, and we don’t find out about them until they’re in full action,” says Dr. Gear, adding, “Nobody in our town was listening to the people who live directly beside the crypto facility.” Towns that welcome the mines because they’re promised an economic boom rarely see long-term results beyond a couple of jobs added to the local economy, they note.
In the end, both communities prevailed, but for different reasons. The Greenville mine project was never built because the company backed out during a crypto crash, while the Adel facility closed a couple of years ago. Neither community will face similar projects going forward as both areas have since placed restrictions on new cryptomining development.
Today, Molly partners with the National Coalition Against Cryptomining, with local chapters in more than a dozen states, sharing information for communities dealing with cryptomining. Dr. Gear encourages advocates facing new facilities locally to do their own research to determine who really stands to gain from the projects and to be vocal, explaining: “You have to show up at the meetings. You have to request to be heard and make sure it all gets placed in the public record. You have to bring visibility to your issues so they come out of the dark.”
Tell Administrator Zeldin: Cutting Climate Pollution Is One of EPA’s Most Important Jobs