After months of delay, NY still reviewing 4,000 public comments for Finger Lakes power plant owned by Bitcoin miners

“It is commendable that they are [DEC] rigorously these feedback and taking them significantly,” Marshall mentioned. “However I used to be additionally curious — why does it take this lengthy to learn by means of that many feedback and get a way of issues. Is it a really sophisticated scenario?”

Marshall and his analysis accomplice, information scientist Marina Zafiris, wished to see it for themselves.

Inside a few hours, Zafiris was in a position to write code to investigate the textual content information of all of the feedback utilizing all open supply software program. They then refined their algorithms to scan the doc topic strains for key phrases similar to “deny Greenidge’s title V air allow.” They manually reviewed practically 20% of the information to double-check their work.

Afterward, they mapped the responses to find out what number of had been out-of-state responses. To this point, they’ve solely mapped 65% of the feedback, however practically 100% of these are from New Yorkers.

“I do need to make this clear: This isn’t advanced. That is merely discovering patterns inside textual content information,” Zafiris mentioned. “It will be easy for any consultants that the DEC would rent to have the ability to do an identical evaluation.”

In response to the press convention, Greenidge Era mentioned it has overwhelming assist from the Yates County legislature, the native farm bureau and IBEW union. In addition they accused opponents of operating an effort to submit false feedback.

“Our few remaining opponents have supplied zero factual or authorized foundation for a denial of our allow renewal,” Greenidge Era wrote in an announcement by way of e-mail. “However they did run a statewide digital marketing campaign to generate hundreds of pre-packaged submissions. We didn’t must make use of campaign-style techniques. Our neighborhood assist is indeniable, because the document displays.”

Seneca Lake residents and environmental teams have cited issues that Greenidge may set a precedent for cryptocurrency mining in New York State, the place a handful of defunct fossil gasoline vegetation are offline and probably out there for profitable operations. Apart from the environmental issues, locals level out the plant is offering little to no profit to the electrical grid because it capabilities virtually fully to energy the crypto mining operation.

In addition they see the choice as a take a look at of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, (CLCPA) which requires all sectors to chop greenhouse gasoline emissions. Final week, 13 members of Congress despatched a letter to the Environmental Safety Company to analyze the cryptomining business for infringing on environmental legal guidelines.