New York chooses crypto over Biden’s climate commitments

Joe Biden has codified his commitment to 100% clean electricity throughout the U.S. by 2035. But New York’s political leaders will not help Biden achieve this goal. Too much energy will be needed for crypto-mining, which New York is unwilling to seriously regulate.

The idea of 100% clean energy by 2035 was a bold one that has recently and rapidly gained traction. The national Democratic Party adopted it as a platform plank during its 2020 convention. At the time, only a few U.S. states had committed to 100% clean electricity. New York had become the first U.S. state to commit to 100% by 2040, when it did so in 2019 via the CLCPA. No others had committed to 100% earlier than 2045.

Biden tried to effectively legislate 100% clean energy by 2035 via his initial version of the Build Back Better plan. When it failed, Biden signed an executive order for the federal government to be carbon-free by 2035. Its effects have been significant, as it required the Tennessee Valley Authority to reach the same goal. It has also prompted the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Army to set goals for fully clean electricity by 2030. And recently, the Biden Administration pledged, along with all other G-7 countries, to reach 100%, nationwide, by 2035, thereby establishing his goal as an international treaty.

Some blue state politicians, in turn, are moving towards requiring fully clean grids by 2035 or earlier. Rhode Island seems poised to require 100% clean electricity by 2033. Massachusetts’ leading Democratic gubernatorial candidate Maura Healey is running on 100% by 2030. In Maryland, eight gubernatorial candidates signed pledges to enact 100% by 2035. California’s grid has seen moments of 100% clean electricity already, and could foreseeably achieve 100% year-round by 2035, even without legislation codifying this. For its part, Washington State has been required to achieve a “carbon-neutral grid” by 2030, via 80% clean electricity and the purchase of carbon credits, since 2019.

New York state is missing in action. None of its Democratic gubernatorial candidates — Kathy Hochul, Tom Suozzi, and Jumaane Williams — has planned to accelerate New York’s transition to an emissions-free grid. Nor has any legislator proposed such a bill.

This is especially surprising in light of New York’s Democratic party’s success in the 2020 elections. There, it grew its Senate majority to a supermajority, and helped elect several democratic socialists to legislative offices.

A major reason for this inaction is New York’s unwillingness to regulate the greatest waste of electricity in the world today: cryptocurrency mining. An entire half-percent of the world’s electricity is used just to mine crypto. Eleven percent of that mining occurs in the U.S. And 16% of that happens in New York, making the Empire State the beating heart of an amoral, world-heating monster.

State senators made an effort to solve the problem in 2021. Senator Kevin Parker sponsored a bill that would have instituted a three-year moratorium on “proof-of-work mining.” “Proof-of-work mining” is the name for the wasteful process in which supercomputers mint crypto-currency coins by solving complex math problems. An alternative, known as “proof-of-stake mining,” is exponentially less wasteful and will soon be adopted by Ethereum, which is the world’s second largest cryptocurrency.

Parker’s bill failed to gain traction, so he settled for a far less ambitious alternative. His revised moratorium would ban new permits for proof-of-work mining operations that emit carbon. But any crypto mining, however wasteful, that uses carbon-free energy, would still be allowed to operate.

This bill passed the senate and the assembly, but its future before Governor Kathy Hochul remains unknown. Hochul claimed in a recent debate that she still needs time to form an opinion on the bill. New York City mayor, Eric Adams, meanwhile, is urging her to veto it.*

Even if the moratorium passes, proof-of-work mining can continue to flourish in New York. The state will be required to use 70% clean electricity, by law, by 2030, and crypto-miners can use as much of that as they please. Then, as now, crypto is likely to use a substantial part of New York’s renewable energy resources; enough to significantly slow the state’s transition to 100% renewable energy, and enough, it appears, to prevent any hope of a carbon-free grid by 2035.

*Another powerful New York politician, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, has introduced a bill at the federal level that would establish a crypto regulation regime that would be highly favorable to the industry.