CITY OF MORGANTOWN ~ Data Center in MIP to Emit Pollution, Heat & Noise — Part 4

Other Towns Regret Allowing ‘Data Centers’ into Their Neighborhoods

From the Letter to Editor by Betsy Lawson, Morgantown Dominion Post, March 27, 2022

Thanks to The Dominion Post for recent editorials and articles regarding the proposed bitcoin mining facility in the Morgantown Industrial Park (MIP).

Northeast Natural Energy has so far refused to confirm the purpose of its “science facility,” but even the gas industry website, Marcellus Shale News, believes that its purpose is for generating (mining) bitcoin.

Bitcoin mining uses banks of purpose-made computers to guess 64-digit target numbers, called hashes. Right now, the chances of doing so are one in 27.55 trillion. The engines that power these computers consume vast amounts of electricity and run 24/7/365. The bitcoin mining industry alone uses four times the electricity per year as the entire City of New York while generating a lot of pollution and heat.

Cooling such engines with water poses a threat to the source when it is returned, a concern for residents near Seneca Lake in upstate New York, where the Greenidge facility mines bitcoin and is allowed to return water to the lake at up to 108 degrees F.

Cooling the engines with huge fans generates so much non-stop noise that residents of Limestone, Tenn., haven’t been able to get a good night’s sleep since Red Dog Technologies opened a facility there.

Everyone who lives across the river from the Morgantown Industrial Park should be very concerned. And what effect will this have on pollution levels in a town that already has two coal-fired power plants? Since China banned cryptocurrency mining, Appalachia is becoming increasingly attractive for these dubious facilities.

Bitcoin and all the other cryptocurrencies are unregulated and anonymously owned and thus useful for criminal activity. What good will it bring to the area? It will certainly lower the quality of life here. Our city council and county commission should stop this intrusion.

>> Betsy Lawson, Concerned Citizen, Morgantown, WV

########+++++++########+++++++#########

City of Morgantown ~ Noise Ordinance: Article 527 ~ Noise Control

527.01 Declaration of Policy ~ The City of Morgantown finding that excessive levels of sound are detrimental to the physical, mental and social well being of the citizens of the City of Morgantown as well as to their comfort, living conditions, general welfare and safety, hereby declares it to be necessary to provide for the greater and more effective regulation of excessive sounds through the adoption of Article 527, Noise Control.

From 527.05 ~ Maximum Permissible Sound Levels From Stationary Sources,  Any Time of Day, Industrial Noise Limit of 70 dBA.

See also 527.02 thru 527.11 for details.

#######++++++++#######++++++++#########