Thursday, April 21, 2022

FIFTH ESTATE

Illegal Canadian trash keeps ending up overseas. And the federal government won't say who's shipping it

Inspectors catch companies breaking the law, but Canada

keeps the names secret

Rachel Ward, Harvey Cashore, Chantal Lavigne, Gil Shochat · CBC News · 
Nina Azzahra, left, and her father, Prigi Arisandi, are environmentalists in Indonesia and are pictured in a tunnel of plastic water bottles built from those collected in their community. Nina, 14, has written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking that Canada stop shipping waste to Indonesia. (WatchDoc/CBC)

The federal government has privately sanctioned several Canadian recycling companies for shipping illegal, unsorted household trash to developing countries, but is keeping the list of names of those caught violating environmental and international laws secret from the public.

A Fifth Estate/Enquête investigation has found that at least 123 shipping containers have been returned to Canada in the past five years after foreign authorities discovered numerous violations of international waste export regulations aimed at stopping Western countries from dumping their trash in developing countries.

"We can't make those names public," Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said in an interview with The Fifth Estate.

Guilbeault said the only time names would be made public is when a company or executive was charged under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

  • WATCH | "Bait and switch: Recycling's dirty secrets," a special edition of The Fifth Estate, on Wednesday at 9 p.m. on CBC-TV or CBC Gem

Environment Canada told The Fifth Estate/Enquête that in the past five years it issued nine warning letters against companies involved in the shipping of the illegal waste.

In that time, there have also been six fines totalling less than $9,000 against four companies and two individuals. 

According to the regulations, environmental officers may avoid laying charges if they decide a fine or a warning is "sufficient and appropriate" to address a company that has violated the law.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says he cannot release the names of the companies that his department sanctioned for illegal waste exports. (CBC)

Guilbeault said that because his officials only laid fines, he agrees with Environment Canada's decision not to release the names. 

"We can issue fines, but in terms of communicating this information publicly, there is still in our legal system this provision that you're innocent until proven guilty by a court of law," Guilbeault said.

Illegal waste 'will continue' without policy change: inspector

Marc De Strooper, a Belgian port inspector, told Enquête and The Fifth Estate that throughout his 25-year career, he has repeatedly caught recycling shipments containing illegal trash from Canada. De Strooper inspects shipping containers passing through the port of Antwerp on the way to their final destinations in India and other countries in Asia. 

European port inspector Marc De Strooper digs through a container of what was supposed to be paper recycling but was actually mixed with plastic and metal waste. De Strooper inspects many Canadian waste shipments that pass through Belgium and alerts Canadian authorities when he finds violations. (Mathieu Marck)

As recently as January, he caught five illegal recycling shipments coming from Canada that were destined for developing countries.

De Strooper said he believes Canadian companies send their trash to developing countries because it can be cheaper to send it overseas rather than process recycled paper and plastics back home.

For that reason, De Strooper said governments should be more vigilant in preventing the exports of contaminated recycling products.

In Belgium, inspectors test bales of recycling to measure the amount of non-recyclable waste they contain. This one had far more than the allowable amount, according to the inspector. (Mathieu Marck)

"I don't know how [Canadian authorities] do these inspections, or how much inspection they do on these items. I still see this waste coming to the port of Antwerp," De Strooper said. 

"If Canada does not change this policy or its habits around this, it will continue."

No accountability without names, lawyer says

Environmental lawyer Sabaa Khan said that Canadians have a right to know the names of the companies sanctioned by the federal government — and that lifting the secrecy around illegal shipments could help prevent future violations.

"If there's no transparency, there can't be any accountability either. That's the most frustrating part," said Khan, who works on these issues with the David Suzuki Foundation.

"The Canadian government has decided that it won't monitor plastic waste very closely."

Sabaa Khan is a environmental lawyer with the David Suzuki Foundation who specializes in international waste supply chains. (CBC)

Under Canadian law, companies are allowed to export some recycling materials like paper or metals for processing. But DeStrooper and others have found that too often shipments for paper recycling, for example, are mixed with household trash or unrecyclable plastic.

As for those illegal shipments from Canada caught recently in Belgium, De Strooper said that the manifests stated that the trash came from companies operating out of Montreal, Toronto and Calgary.

'I just feel kind of lied to'

For young environmentalists and recyclers like sisters Sadie and Willa Vipond in Calgary, the lack of transparency helps protect companies — and prevents Canadians from addressing the issue in public.

"If people knew this was happening and there was more transparency … then I think real change can happen," Sadie, 16, said.

"I just feel kind of lied to, personally," Willa, 14, said. "So why are they showing us these videos in school about what is supposed to happen after you recycle something, and it just being a myth?"

Willa Vipond, left, and Sadie Vipond, right, are sisters and environmentalists. The teens have long recycled their household waste as a way to reduce their environmental footprint. (Jamie Ross/WestRock Images/CBC)
  

Through confidential sources, Enquête was able to identify the source of some of the containers that Belgian authorities say were being illegally shipped abroad. The paper waste came from one of the City of Montreal's recycling centres, operated by the company Ricova International. According to the inspectors, the paper recycling shipment destined for India contained far too much additional plastic and other waste.

Ricova disputes the findings of the Belgian inspector and said that the non-paper waste in the shipment was not out of the ordinary.

'Stop exporting your plastic waste'

Young activists and governments around the world have been pushing for a blanket ban on Western waste exports to developing countries.

In Indonesia, 14-year-old environmentalist Nina Azzahra has developed a large following on social media after her push to try to convince to Western countries to stop shipping waste to her country. 

Representatives from several countries, including Germany, Australia and the Netherlands, met with her and promised to change their export policies.

Since 2020, Nina has sent two letters to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

"Why do you send your trash to our country? You should take care of your own trash in your own country," she wrote.

Nina Azzara reads her letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The 14-year-old activist wants Canada to stop all waste exports to Indonesia. (WatchDoc/CBC)

Trudeau's office responded to Nina in January, nearly two years after her first letter, and said they forwarded her letter to the environment minister. 

However, Guilbeault has yet to respond.

"They know that recycling is hard, it's difficult and expensive. Maybe they still don't want to leave Indonesia. They still want Indonesia to be a dump site for their waste," Nina said in an interview with The Fifth Estate.

"I really want you to stop — stop exporting your plastic waste to Indonesia. Just stop."

Politicians supported a ban

Scot Davidson, a Conservative member of Parliament for York-Simcoe, north of Toronto, has been pushing to ban the export of Canadian non-recyclable plastic waste. 

"Canada has to take responsibility," Davidson said. "We just can't lob our garbage over the fence to our neighbours and say, 'Out of sight, out of mind.'"

Last year, his bill to ban the export of non-recyclable plastic waste got widespread support from opposition parties. But the Liberals wouldn't back it. 

"I hate to be partisan, but sometimes, you have to be. This is all talk, no action. The Liberals proclaim to be the party of the environment," Davidson said.

"It was almost like they didn't want the Conservatives to have a win on the environment, so we're not going to vote for this bill."

Scot Davidson is the Conservative member of Parliament for York-Simcoe, an Ontario riding. He proposed Bill C-204 to prevent the export of non-recyclable plastic waste. (CBC)

Guilbeault told The Fifth Estate he disagrees with Davidson's characterization of why the Liberals voted against his bill. He said the government is focused on banning some types of single-use plastic substances to cut down on the amount of plastic Canada is producing overall. 

"We're banning plastic substances in Canada," Guilbeault said. "This idea that because we didn't vote in favour of that bill, we're not – we don't want to tackle the problem is simply not true."

Despite Liberal opposition, Bill C-204 passed in the House of Commons. However, it died in the Senate along with other proposed legislation because the 2021 election was called.

"Unfortunately I think the world's oceans are going to suffer because of that delay now," Davidson said.

He has reintroduced his bill for this sitting of Parliament and hopes this time it will pass both houses.

Canada avoids international pledge to stop exports

Khan, the environmental lawyer, said that Canada has faced repeated requests from other countries to end waste shipments and join international agreements, but has delayed doing so.

"We live in one of the most technologically advanced, richest societies," she said. "There's no reason that we should be exporting our wastes."

In recent years, countries in Asia in particular have been pushing back against waste coming from the West.

In 2019, 187 countries signed onto an amendment to an international treaty known as the Basel Convention. The amendment applied new regulations for the shipment of plastic waste. Canada eventually signed on, but only after two years of delays.

To this day, Canada has not signed onto another Basel amendment, one that would answer the demands of environmentalists like Nina in Indonesia.

More than 100 countries have signed onto the new amendment that would ban many waste exports to the developing world completely.

"At the end of the day, this is simply a lack of political will on Canada's part," Khan said.

"The European Union, for instance, has adopted the Basel ban.... Canada has adamantly refused to do so."

Willa Vipond, left, and her sister Sadie Vipond, right, say that a lot of what Canadians can buy in grocery stores is covered in plastic, leaving few options for environmentally conscious shoppers on a budget. (Jamie Ross/WestRock Images/CBC)

Guilbeault said there are "a number of reasons" why Canada has not yet signed. He said one of the reasons was that his government is assessing Canadian laws and enforcement tools and is considering tougher penalties for illegal exports.

He also said the Liberals' plan to ban some types of single-use plastics, which is set to come into effect at the end of 2022, will cut down on the amount of plastic produced in this country.

"We need to do better," Guilbeault said. "We're banning a certain number of plastic substances in Canada. It's about managing waste in Canada."

Nina Azzahra holds a bag of President's Choice praline nut mix from Canada that she found in her neighbourhood in Indonesia. The young activist wants Canada to stop waste shipments to her country. (WatchDoc/CBC)

As for Nina, she is still waiting for a promise from Canada to stop exporting non-recyclable waste to Indonesia. She continues to educate people around the world, recently travelling to the Netherlands to give a speech to environmentalists there.

"As children, we have the right to live in a safe, clean and healthy environment," Nina told the crowd.

"The present generation should not steal our basic rights and endanger the lives of the next generation."

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 Opinion

Attacking opponents as socialists and dictators weakens the fabric of our democracy

While such terms have a textbook definition, they also have a strategic meaning when used by politicians


Stewart Prest · for CBC Opinion · 
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin before the opening session at the Paris Peace Forum in November 2018. Both of these men were recently called dictators in the House of Commons. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

This column is an opinion by Stewart Prest, a lecturer in political science at Simon Fraser University. For more information about CBC's Opinion section, please see the FAQ.

From communists to dictators, there are a lot of five- and 10-dollar words flying around in politics these days.

While such terms have a textbook definition, they also have a strategic meaning when used by politicians. They are labels used to encourage listeners to think about someone in a specific, often highly negative, and even delegitimizing way — a shorthand code to associate politicians with anti-democratic values.

For instance, during the recent debate about the government's fiscal update, Conservative MP Brad Redekopp stood in the House of Commons to say, "In Ottawa, we saw the use of the Emergencies Act to call on police forces to crush peaceful protesters under the jackboot of the prime minister's basic dictatorship, and another dictator is currently using his war machine to crush our friends in Ukraine."

Fellow Conservative MP Rachael Thomas supported her colleague, arguing that "According to the Oxford dictionary, a dictator is a 'ruler with total power over a country, typically one who has obtained control by force.' There are many Canadians who would hold the view that this applies to the Prime Minister of Canada. It is up to the Canadian people to determine that, and they will be determining that in the next election."

On its face, something doesn't add up here. A leader that can be publicly challenged in the legislature, and voted out in a forthcoming free and fair election, is not a dictator. Moreover, every democracy must use some measure of force to maintain public order and to balance among competing freedoms. If some feel that a government has overstepped the mark in doing so, their actions are challengeable in court. We are seeing a number of Canadians do just that with regard to the response to the Ottawa occupation.

Such realities aside, politicians like Redekopp and Thomas use the "dictator" label to convey the idea that a leader is not sufficiently accountable to the will of the people, or that they have illegitimately used coercion to maintain power. The impression that the leader is out of touch and abusing their power can stick with listeners. 

Repeated often enough, the insult becomes part of the way opponents perceive a leader. They are effectively framed as undemocratic, and even illegitimate.

Terms used to delegitimize

Other terms can be used to delegitimize as well. For instance, as part of his leadership campaign, Pierre Poilievre is leaning into a relatively libertarian view of conservatism. The central word of his campaign has been "freedom": from pandemic regulations to access to alternative currencies like Bitcoin, his campaign is built around the idea that more government is the problem, and freedom is the solution.

To emphasize his own views, Poilievre refers to his opponents as "socialists." He dismissed the supply-and-confidence agreement between the NDP and the Liberals as a "socialist coalition." Given how the label "socialist" conjures up additional burdens of taxation and regulation, it is an ideal foil for a libertarian speaking to those who feel they would be better able to chart their own path without the state's assistance. 

"Socialist" used as an attack can be delegitimizing as well, particularly when a link is drawn or implied between it and the anti-democratic evils of 20th-century communism. 

Communists, while agreeing with democratic socialists on the need to redistribute resources, endorse the need for revolutionary change, a transformation of the economy toward collective ownership to which all contribute, and are paid according to some combination of needs, abilities, and work. In theory, that revolution need not be undemocratic; in practice, however, communist revolutions, and the regimes that followed, have been just that. 

While not using the label "communist" to refer to opponents directly, Poilievre has at times drawn links between his opponents and socialism, communism and authoritarianism. For instance, last year he tweeted that "Trudeau said he admired China's 'basic dictatorship' and called Fidel Castro a 'legendary revolutionary.' He still believes those things. That is why he won't condemn the socialist crackdown on the Cuban people."

Again, the reality is that belief in a more active state makes one neither communist, nor anti-democratic. In kindergarten — stay with me here — along with rules like "don't eat the paste," and "don't give yourself a haircut with your neat new scissors," we learn two seemingly contradictory, yet equally crucial social lessons: don't take what isn't yours, and make sure you share with others so that everyone has enough.

A potent insult

In a way, libertarianism and socialism represent each of those lessons applied to politics. Libertarians believe that we should each be left alone to do what we will with what we have. Conversely, socialists focus on the need to ensure everyone has what they need to live a life of dignity. 

While socialist policies do indeed focus on the state's ability to collect and redistribute resources in ways that improve the lives of all, particularly the least advantaged, they may be both widespread and popular, as in the case of state-supported childcare. Indeed, there are socialist policies found in nearly every capitalist democratic society, sitting alongside robust protections for private property and personal freedoms.

Even so, it remains a potent insult given the way the label draws links with the Cold War legacy of totalitarian communism.

Some may be inclined to dismiss such language as "just politics." Others may say I'm only targeting Conservatives here. Fair enough. But at the moment, they are the ones standing up in the House of Commons to delegitimize their opponents as anti-democratic. We certainly saw inflammatory language on the margins of Twitter and elsewhere attacking former prime minister Stephen Harper as a fascist, but when used in the House, such language was rightly called out as unparliamentary. 

The repeated intimation that democratic leaders are acting undemocratically can undermine the confidence of voters in the legitimacy of the system. Such labels can serve to heighten political polarization as well, encouraging voters to see political opponents not just as mistaken but illegitimate.

In the long run, these effects can weaken the very fabric of democracy. If we lose the ability to distinguish between an unpopular democratic leader and a dictator like Vladimir Putin, or between state-funded childcare and a centrally-planned economy, we risk losing sight of the value of discourse and debate in a pluralist liberal democracy, and the vital importance of defending it.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stewart Prest is a lecturer in political science at Simon Fraser University. He teaches and researches a range of subjects, including democratic institutions and Canadian politics.

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 VANCOUVER

Angry commuters drag protesters as they block Ironworkers Memorial Bridge

Protesters dragged off

Chris Campbell / Burnaby Now -  | Story: 366623

A series of anti-logging protests on Highway 1 in Burnaby turned rough Thursday morning as some drivers had apparently had enough of the traffic disruptions.

A video posted by the group Save Old Growth shows some of its members sitting on the deck of the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge.

Suddenly, in step some drivers who had left their vehicles to try and drag the protesters out of their path.

“The Trans-Canada Highway has been blocked by Save Old Growth,” reads a tweet. “People were violently attacked by angry commuters and stayed calm and non-violent during the process.”

Traffic was backed up well into Burnaby.

The protests have been going on for several weeks, but multiple events have been staged in the last couple of days. Earlier this week, two people were arrested at the intersection of Grandview and Boundary Road in Burnaby for blocking traffic.

Motorists are advised to stay in their vehicles and wait for police to arrive if they encounter a blockade.

This was the group’s 10th direct-action in Vancouver and Burnaby this month.

A total of 84 people have been arrested on B.C. highways since January in Vancouver, Burnaby Revelstoke, Victoria and Nanaimo.

“We’re done being afraid. We won’t stop until the government passes legislation to end all old growth logging. This is not a big demand, we’ve only got 2.7% of the productive old growth left. Killing the last of these ancient trees is a death sentence for millions of Canadians due to ecological breakdown,” said Julia Torgerson, a spokesperson for the group, in a statement.


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Energy-thirsty Bitcoin miners seek ways to dump fossil fuels


Thu, April 21, 2022



HELENA, Mont. (AP) — For the past year a company that “mines” cryptocurrency had what seemed the ideal location for its thousands of power-thirsty computers working around the clock to verify bitcoin transactions: the grounds of a coal-fired power plant in rural Montana.

But with the cryptocurrency industry under increasing pressure to rein in the environmental impact of its massive electricity consumption, Marathon Digital Holdings made the decision to pack up its computers, called miners, and relocate them to a wind farm in Texas.

“For us, it just came down to the fact that we don’t want to be operating on fossil fuels,” said company CEO Fred Thiel.

In the world of bitcoin mining, access to cheap and reliable electricity is everything. But many economists and environmentalists have warned that as the still widely misunderstood digital currency grows in price — and with it popularity — the process of mining that is central to its existence and value is becoming increasingly energy intensive and potentially unsustainable.

Bitcoin was was created in 2009 as a new way of paying for things that would not be subject to central banks or government oversight. While it has yet to widely catch on as a method of payment, it has seen its popularity as a speculative investment surge despite volatility that can cause its price to swing wildly. In March 2020, one bitcoin was worth just over $5,000. That surged to a record of more than $67,000 in November 2021 before falling to just over $35,000 in January.

Central to bitcoin's technology is the process through which transactions are verified and then recorded on what's known as the blockchain. Computers connected to the bitcoin network race to solve complex mathematical calculations that verify the transactions, with the winner earning newly minted bitcoins as a reward. Currently, when a machine solves the puzzle, its owner is rewarded with 6.25 bitcoins — worth about $260,000 total. The system is calibrated to release 6.25 bitcoins every 10 minutes.

When bitcoin was first invented it was possible to solve the puzzles using a regular home computer, but the technology was designed so problems become harder to solve as more miners work on them. Those mining today use specialized machines that have no monitors and look more like a high-tech fan than a traditional computer. The amount of energy used by computers to solve the puzzles grows as more computers join the effort and puzzles are made more difficult.

Marathon Digital, for example, currently has about 37,000 miners, but hopes to have 199,000 online by early next year, the company said.

Determining how much energy the industry uses is difficult because not all mining companies report their use and some operations are mobile, moving storage containers full of miners around the country chasing low-cost power.

The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index estimates bitcoin mining used about 109 terrawatt hours of electricity over the past year — close to the amount used in Virginia in 2020, according to the U.S. Energy Information Center. The current usage rate would work out to 143 TWh over a full year, or about the amount used by Ohio or New York state in 2020.

Cambridge's estimate does not include energy used to mine other cryptocurrencies.

A key moment in the debate over bitcoin’s energy use came last spring, when just weeks after Tesla Motors said it was buying $1.5 billion in bitcoin and would also accept the digital currency as payment for electric vehicles, CEO Elon Musk joined critics in calling out the industry’s energy use and said the company would no longer be taking it as payment.

Some want the government to step in with regulation.

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul is being pressured to declare a moratorium on the so-called proof-of-work mining method — the one bitcoin uses — and to deny an air quality permit for a project at a retrofitted coal-fired power plant that runs on natural gas.

A New York State judge recently ruled the project would not impact the air or water of nearby Seneca Lake.

“Repowering or expanding coal and gas plants to make fake money in the middle of a climate crisis is literally insane,” Yvonne Taylor, vice president of Seneca Lake Guardians, said in a statement.

Anne Hedges with the Montana Environmental Information Center said that before Marathon Digital showed up, environmental groups had expected the coal-fired power plant in Hardin, Montana, to close.

“It was a death watch,” Hedges said. “We were getting their quarterly reports. We were looking at how much they were operating. We were seeing it continue to decline year after year — and last year that totally changed. It would have gone out of existence but for bitcoin.”

The cryptocurrency industry “needs to find a way to reduce its energy demand,” and needs to be regulated, Hedges said. “That’s all there is to it. This is unsustainable.”

Some say the solution is to switch from proof-of-work verification to proof-of-stake verification, which is already used by some cryptocurrencies. With proof of stake, verification of digital currency transfers is assigned to computers, rather than having them compete. People or groups that stake more of their cryptocurrency are more likely to get the work — and the reward.

While the method uses far less electricity, some critics argue proof-of-stake blockchains are less secure.

Some companies in the industry acknowledge there is a problem and are committing to achieving net-zero emissions — adding no greenhouse gases to the atmosphere — from the electricity they use by 2030 by signing onto a Crypto Climate Accord, modeled after the Paris Climate Agreement.

“All crypto communities should work together, with urgency, to ensure crypto does not further exacerbate global warming, but instead becomes a net positive contributor to the vital transition to a low carbon global economy,” the accord states.

Marathon Digital is one of several companies pinning its hopes on tapping into excess renewable energy from solar and wind farms in Texas. Earlier this month the companies Blockstream Mining and Block, formerly Square, announced they were breaking ground in Texas on a small, off-the-grid mining facility using Tesla solar panels and batteries.

“This is a step to proving our thesis that bitcoin mining can fund zero-emission power infrastructure," said Adam Back, CEO and co-founder of Blockstream.

Companies argue that cryptocurrency mining can provide an economic incentive to build more renewable energy projects and help stabilize power grids. Miners give renewable energy generators a guaranteed customer, making it easier for the projects to get financing and generate power at their full capacity.

The mining companies are able to contract for lower-priced energy because “all the energy they use can be shut off and given back to the grid at a moment’s notice,” said Thiel.

In Pennsylvania, Stronghold Digital is cleaning up hundreds of years of coal waste by burning it to create what the state classifies as renewable energy that can be sent to the grid or used in bitcoin mining, depending on power demands.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection is a partner in the work, which uses relatively new technology to burn the waste coal more efficiently and with fewer emissions. Left alone, piles of waste coal can catch fire and burn for years, releasing greenhouse gases. When wet, the waste coal leaches acid into area waterways.

After using the coal waste to generate electricity, what’s left is “toxicity-free fly ash,” which is registered by the state as a clean fertilizer, Stronghold Digital spokesperson Naomi Harrington said.

As Marathon Digital gradually moves its 30,000 miners out of Montana, it's leaving behind tens of millions of dollars in mining infrastructure behind.

Just because Marathon doesn’t want to use coal-fired power anymore doesn’t mean there won’t be another bitcoin miner to take its place. Thiel said he assumes the power plant owners will find a company to do just that.

“No reason not to,” he said.

Amy Beth Hanson, The Associated Press


Going green: How to ditch fossil fuels powering the bitcoin network

The amount of energy used by computers to solve the puzzles grows as more computers join the effort and puzzles are made more difficult

AP | Helena (US) Last Updated at April 21, 2022


For the past year a company that mines cryptocurrency had what seemed the ideal location for its thousands of power-thirsty computers working around the clock to verify bitcoin transactions: the grounds of a coal-fired power plant in rural Montana.

But with the cryptocurrency industry under increasing pressure to rein in the environmental impact of its massive electricity consumption, Marathon Digital Holdings made the decision to pack up its computers, called miners, and relocate them to a wind farm in Texas.

For us, it just came down to the fact that we don't want to be operating on fossil fuels, said company CEO Fred Thiel.

In the world of bitcoin mining, access to cheap and reliable electricity is everything.

But many economists and environmentalists have warned that as the still widely misunderstood digital currency grows in price and with it popularity the process of mining that is central to its existence and value is becoming increasingly energy intensive and potentially unsustainable.

Bitcoin was was created in 2009 as a new way of paying for things that would not be subject to central banks or government oversight.

While it has yet to widely catch on as a method of payment, it has seen its popularity as a speculative investment surge despite volatility that can cause its price to swing wildly.

In March 2020, one bitcoin was worth just over USD 5,000. That surged to a record of more than USD 67,000 in November 2021 before falling to just over USD 35,000 in January.

Central to bitcoin's technology is the process through which transactions are verified and then recorded on what's known as the blockchain.

Computers connected to the bitcoin network race to solve complex mathematical calculations that verify the transactions, with the winner earning newly minted bitcoins as a reward.

Currently, when a machine solves the puzzle, its owner is rewarded with 6.25 bitcoins worth about USD 260,000 total. The system is calibrated to release 6.25 bitcoins every 10 minutes.

When bitcoin was first invented it was possible to solve the puzzles using a regular home computer, but the technology was designed so problems become harder to solve as more miners work on them. Those mining today use specialised machines that have no monitors and look more like a high-tech fan than a traditional computer.

The amount of energy used by computers to solve the puzzles grows as more computers join the effort and puzzles are made more difficult.

Marathon Digital, for example, currently has about 37,000 miners, but hopes to have 199,000 online by early next year, the company said.

Determining how much energy the industry uses is difficult because not all mining companies report their use and some operations are mobile, moving storage containers full of miners around the country chasing low-cost power.

The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index estimates bitcoin mining used about 109 terrawatt hours of electricity over the past year close to the amount used in Virginia in 2020, according to the US Energy Information Center.

The current usage rate would work out to 143 TWh over a full year, or about the amount used by Ohio or New York state in 2020.

Cambridge's estimate does not include energy used to mine other cryptocurrencies.

A key moment in the debate over bitcoin's energy use came last spring, when just weeks after Tesla Motors said it was buying USD 1.5 billion in bitcoin and would also accept the digital currency as payment for electric vehicles, CEO Elon Musk joined critics in calling out the industry's energy use and said the company would no longer be taking it as payment.

Some want the government to step in with regulation.

In New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul is being pressured to declare a moratorium on the so-called proof-of-work mining method the one bitcoin uses and to deny an air quality permit for a project at a retrofitted coal-fired power plant that runs on natural gas.

A New York State judge recently ruled the project would not impact the air or water of nearby Seneca Lake.

Repowering or expanding coal and gas plants to make fake money in the middle of a climate crisis is literally insane, Yvonne Taylor, vice president of Seneca Lake Guardians, said in a statement.


Anne Hedges with the Montana Environmental Information Center said that before Marathon Digital showed up, environmental groups had expected the coal-fired power plant in Hardin, Montana, to close.

It was a death watch, Hedges said.

We were getting their quarterly reports. We were looking at how much they were operating. We were seeing it continue to decline year after year and last year that totally changed. It would have gone out of existence but for bitcoin.

The cryptocurrency industry needs to find a way to reduce its energy demand, and needs to be regulated, Hedges said. That's all there is to it. This is unsustainable.

Some say the solution is to switch from proof-of-work verification to proof-of-stake verification, which is already used by some cryptocurrencies. With proof of stake, verification of digital currency transfers is assigned to computers, rather than having them compete.

People or groups that stake more of their cryptocurrency are more likely to get the work and the reward.

While the method uses far less electricity, some critics argue proof-of-stake blockchains are less secure.

Some companies in the industry acknowledge there is a problem and are committing to achieving net-zero emissions adding no greenhouse gases to the atmosphere from the electricity they use by 2030 by signing onto a Crypto Climate Accord, modeled after the Paris Climate Agreement.

All crypto communities should work together, with urgency, to ensure crypto does not further exacerbate global warming, but instead becomes a net positive contributor to the vital transition to a low carbon global economy, the accord states.

Marathon Digital is one of several companies pinning its hopes on tapping into excess renewable energy from solar and wind farms in Texas.

Earlier this month the companies Blockstream Mining and Block, formerly Square, announced they were breaking ground in Texas on a small, off-the-grid mining facility using Tesla solar panels and batteries.

This is a step to proving our thesis that bitcoin mining can fund zero-emission power infrastructure," said Adam Back, CEO and co-founder of Blockstream.

Companies argue that cryptocurrency mining can provide an economic incentive to build more renewable energy projects and help stabilize power grids.

Miners give renewable energy generators a guaranteed customer, making it easier for the projects to get financing and generate power at their full capacity.

The mining companies are able to contract for lower-priced energy because all the energy they use can be shut off and given back to the grid at a moment's notice, said Thiel.

In Pennsylvania, Stronghold Digital is cleaning up hundreds of years of coal waste by burning it to create what the state classifies as renewable energy that can be sent to the grid or used in bitcoin mining, depending on power demands.

Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection is a partner in the work, which uses relatively new technology to burn the waste coal more efficiently and with fewer emissions.

Left alone, piles of waste coal can catch fire and burn for years, releasing greenhouse gases. When wet, the waste coal leaches acid into area waterways.

After using the coal waste to generate electricity, what's left is toxicity-free fly ash, which is registered by the state as a clean fertilizer, Stronghold Digital spokesperson Naomi Harrington said.

As Marathon Digital gradually moves its 30,000 miners out of Montana, it's leaving behind tens of millions of dollars in mining infrastructure behind.

Just because Marathon doesn't want to use coal-fired power anymore doesn't mean there won't be another bitcoin miner to take its place. Thiel said he assumes the power plant owners will find a company to do just that.

No reason not to, he said.

A Fossil Fuel Power Plant That Mines Bitcoin Is Fighting to Stay Open

Regulators say the Greenidge plant in New York State is fighting an an "uphill battle" to prove it's environmentally-friendly enough to stay open.

By Audrey Carleton
20.4.22

A natural gas-fired power plant connected to a Bitcoin mine in Dresden, New York is fighting to green its image as it vies for renewed permits from the state.

The Greenidge power plant has become the center of fierce debate over Bitcoin mining in New York State and how the industry fits into the state’s climate goals. Decommissioned as a coal-fired plant in 2011, Greenidge was reopened in 2017 after being purchased by Atlas Holdings and converted to a natural gas plant, spinning up Bitcoin mining starting in 2019. Today, it’s one of the largest Bitcoin mining facilities in the U.S., running 17,000 rigs.

Greenidge lauds itself as “carbon neutral,” claiming to offset the emissions that come from burning fossil fuels to generate bitcoins with “reliable, verified” credits and systems that it says are more efficient than the network standard. But that’s not enough for many environmentalist opponents, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who say the environmental footprint of Bitcoin mining outweighs any justification for its existence, especially when it uses fossil fuels directly.

“Given the extraordinarily high energy usage and carbon emissions associated with Bitcoin mining, mining operations at Greenidge and other plants raise concerns about their impacts on the global environment, on local ecosystems, and on consumer electricity costs,” Warren wrote in a letter to the plant’s CEO, Jeffrey Kirt, last December.

Despite purchasing offsets, the plant’s emissions increased “nearly tenfold from 2019 to 2020,” Warren’s letter claims, citing data from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) obtained by the Committee To Preserve The Finger Lakes, which opposes the Greenidge plant’s mining operation. In 2020, those emissions were comparable to that of 50,000 cars, the letter reads. At the time, Greenidge told Bloomberg that the operation “meets all of New York’s nation-leading environmental standards.”

Even so, the plant faces an “uphill battle,” for its permits, DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos told Binghamton, New York-based broadcaster WSKG on Monday, noting that he still has “significant concerns” about the environmental impact of its operations.

“DEC has advised the applicant, Greenidge Generation, LLC, of the need for additional greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation measures to meet the requirements of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act,” a warning on the DEC website reads. “On March 25, the applicant, Greenidge Generation, LLC, proposed GHG mitigation measures for the facility as part of the current Title V and IV permit renewal process. DEC has not made a determination regarding the sufficiency of the proposed GHG mitigation measures in meeting these requirements.”

“DEC subjects every application to all applicable federal and State standards to ensure the agency’s decision is protective of public health and the environment and upholds environmental justice and fairness,” the agency told Motherboard in an email.

The regulator is still “reviewing additional information submitted by” Greenidge, alongside some 4,000 public comments it received about the plant, the notice continues.

The agency’s hesitation primarily comes down to a piece of landmark climate legislation passed in 2019 that, at the time, positioned New York state as a national leader in environmental policy. The Climate and Community Leadership Protection Act (CLCPA) established a set of legally-binding environmental targets requiring 70 percent of New York’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2030 in order to reduce statewide greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent by 2050. Now, three years after the Act’s passage, advocates say the state is far from achieving these goals. Allowing the proliferation of Bitcoin mining tied to fossil fuel plants would set New York even farther back from them, critics say, as it extends a lifeline to fossil fuel infrastructure that would otherwise have no reason to exist.

Greenidge underscored in its March 25 proposal to the DEC that it is “prepared do more than the legal minimum—and more that it has already done—to reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions in support of the Department’s effort to achieve CLCPA’s goals.” It proposed reducing its overall emissions volumes by 40 per cent from what’s currently permitted by the end of 2025, five years before the CLCPA’s 2030 renewable targets. The plant underscored that its own emissions comprise well under one percent of the state’s overall emissions and power volumes.

“The State of New York should lead, embracing the cryptocurrency industry and all the opportunity we’ve shown it can create for New Yorkers while complying with the nation’s most aggressive environmental standards and laws addressing climate change,” Greenidge said in a statement emailed to Motherboard. “We look forward to finalizing a strong, renewed [air] permit to allow Greenidge to continue its environmental and economic stewardship in New York.”

In addition to regulators’ concerns, local critics like Seneca Lake Guardian and Committee to Preserve the Finger Lakes oppose not just Greenidge’s atmospheric emissions, but its potential impact on water quality around the plant. Last year, a claim that the facility has turned the glacial lake it sits next to into a “hot tub” went viral. That claim wasn’t true, but shows the level of angst Greenidge has fomented in the region, and may have a kernel of truth to it. The facility’s intake pipe draws up fresh water from the nearby Seneca Lake to power the facility with steam and cool it, pumping it back out at an allowed maximum of 108 degrees. Greenridge maintains that in 2021 it never reached that temperature and the average discharge temperature is approximately 32 degrees below the permitted level.

That this type of setup can imperil local wildlife is a well-documented phenomenon. Intake pipes suck in water and wildlife indiscriminately, Grist reported in 2021. This can result in fish and wildlife being mangled by facilities, which the Sierra Club once described as “giant fish blenders.”

Many of these environmental groups hope to see the state issue a moratorium on the issuing of permits for Bitcoin mining as a whole: Citing the state’s move to ban fracking in 2014, advocates say the state has a well-defined legislative pathway to putting an end to Bitcoin mining. Most recently, that chorus of voices came to include New York City Public Advocate and gubernatorial candidate Jumaane Williams, who called on Governor Kathy Hochul to place a moratorium on Proof-of-Work mining. The technique for providing network security used by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies involves brute-force number crunching in a global lottery to add a block of valid transactions to the chain. To Bitcoiners, this is a critical part of the system, but to critics, it’s a lot of wasted energy.

“Bitcoin mines that use a 'Proof-of-Work' process are known to cause significant damage to the environment and local economy, which is why many countries have completely banned the practice,” Williams told local broadcaster Spectrum News in February. “Unfortunately New York has fallen behind, allowing nearly 20 percent of the country's mines to operate in our state without any oversight or regulation. We need to ask questions now rather than dealing with the fallout later."

A bill that would put a two-year moratorium on all Proof-of-Work mining in New York has garnered traction in the state legislature—it would put an end to what The New York Times called a “Bitcoin boom” in Northern and Western New York. Bitcoin mining doesn’t need fossil fuels, and New York State is home to ample hydropower and shuttered industrial plants, making it a leading producer of new bitcoins nationwide as firms seek cheap power.

Still, many environmentalists fear that Greenidge’s case is part of a larger wave of once-mothballed power plants coming back to life via Bitcoin. There are an estimated 30 mothballed coal and oil-powered plants across the state that could be fodder for mining operations like this one, Buffalo News reported last July.

Greenidge, for its part, remains firm that it’s taken steps to meet the requirements the DEC has laid out for its permit approvals.

“We are willing to do far more than we have already done to further reduce [greenhouse gas] emissions and help the state achieve its statewide CLCPA goals,” the plant said in a statement on March 31. “Notwithstanding the noise from our few remaining opponents, this is a standard air permit renewal governing permitted emissions levels, not a cryptocurrency permit. Their efforts to mislead the public—and to cause our team members and IBEW [union] partners to lose their jobs without any basis in law or fact—have been shameful.”

How Bitcoin Mines Were Airlifted From China to the US

After China banned Bitcoin, an exodus of mining computers made their way all over the globe.




By Melissa Chan
21.4.22

This article is based on reporting for the seventh episode of CRYPTOLAND, Motherboard’s documentary series about how cryptocurrency is affecting culture, politics, the environment, and our shared future. Watch it on Motherboard’s YouTube.

Outside a warehouse in upstate New York, Sam Tabar stands transfixed, gazing at a pile of coal as a Caterpillar excavator scoops chunks up for removal. His company, Bit Digital, is one of the world's largest cryptocurrency mining firms, and it has taken over this former coal plant for its own operations.

“It’s come full circle now,” he marvels. “We have these places that were devastated by China's takeover of manufacturing,” referring to American Rust Belt deindustrialization over the past few decades. But now, “the future is coming back to Buffalo, thanks to China.”

China once dominated the Bitcoin mining market, the computing process by which new Bitcoin enters circulation. The country once accounted for more than 80 percent of the world’s Bitcoin mining. But in the way authoritarian states can, Beijing decided to ban all foreign cryptocurrencies last year in part to bolster its own centrally-controlled digital yuan. As miners scrambled to move their valuable hardware out, they made bets on which countries were safest to install their machines. By geographic proximity and the promise of cheap energy, some transferred their assets to Russia and Kazakhstan. Others opted for higher transport fees and sent their equipment to the United States. Given Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Kazakhstan’s own violent political unrest this January, the choice has brought to sharp focus the mining risks in closed societies versus open societies.

Bit Digital had 30,000 ASICs—the machines used for mining—in China. Tabar, the company’s Chief Strategy Officer, and the rest of the team spent months shipping units, each worth thousands of dollars, out by plane, train, and boat. Choosing the United States made sense to Tabar.

“There's rule of law, there's transparency on decision making,” he says. The Biden administration’s March executive order on cryptocurrencies, though absent on specifics, indicates that the US views digital assets as important to maintaining American leadership in global finance. “I am hopeful that the FCC and other stakeholders [will] have a very thoughtful conversation about regulation and not stamp out innovation,” says Tabar.

Time was of the essence when companies were deciding where to relocate their machines. Every minute an ASIC is not plugged in is a minute it isn’t mining for potential Bitcoin. When miners look for efficiency, autocracies have their appeal. Leaders can make magic happen with a snap of their fingers. Kazakhstan saw an opportunity as mining units left China and its president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, welcomed crypto cowboys to his frontier, promising minimal regulation and cheap electricity.

Kazakh startup Enegix quickly threw up data centers where incoming miners could pay to plug in their machines. In addition to low energy costs, Enegix CEO Yerbolsyn Sarsenov touted its northern operations in the near-Siberian cold as an asset, because Bitcoin mines generate a lot of heat, and keeping ASICs from overheating can be a challenge at certain mines. Enegix's facility is “dry and cool, so hardware has a long service life and stays operational for a long time,” he explains to Motherboard.

Short-term ease-of-setup in an authoritarian state, however, can translate to long-term uncertainty. Tokayev giveth, and he taketh away. A few months after the leader’s crypto pronouncement, the government unexpectedly limited the amount of power prospectors could tap into, saying it would be rolled back by up to 95 percent. Mining activity crashed overnight. As the future of mining in the country suddenly looked dicey, problems deepened as nationwide anti-government protests prompted a bloody crackdown.

Following the unrest, Tokayev has devoted the past few months to consolidating power and putting pressure on the family and associates of Kazakhstan’s previous leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who ruled for almost three decades. Some of these curbs included stopping their Bitcoin ventures. Along with pursuing elites, officials also went after smaller mining operators, forcing many unlicensed ones to shutter.

Alex Gladstein, author of Check Your Financial Privilege: Inside the Global Bitcoin Revolution and Chief Strategy Officer at Human Rights Foundation, believes most miners exiting China “would’ve preferred to have rack space in Canada, Iceland, Norway, or the United States.” China’s Bitcoin ban had happened quickly, and many Western operators were unprepared to absorb the flood of hardware. Kazakhstan, he argues, was more of a backup option.

Cambridge University’s Center for Alternative Finance shows Kazakhstan grabbing second place after the US in global Bitcoin mining rankings, but most observers expect it to slip this year. It may still stick around as a significant player, however, given Russia’s new status as a pariah state and a potential exodus of Russian miners who would prefer to operate in a country free of sanctions. While the fall of the ruble has led to cheaper energy costs in Russia, miners there will soon face difficulties procuring hardware. Several firms have already pivoted from Russia to Kazakhstan. Enegix’s future success may partly depend on this second migration of ASICs.

The outcome for now however, puts the US firmly in the global lead, a warp speed transfer of wealth within one year from China — or a transfer of a boondoggle, depending on one’s assessment of cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies remain a highly divisive and debated digital development, and US politicians have wrestled over whether to welcome the industry to their respective jurisdictions.

Here US federalism is an asset, allowing states and cities to explore different policies. Texas has leaned in hard, with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), himself a Bitcoin investor, pledging the state will "become the center of the universe for Bitcoin and crypto.” Elsewhere however, including in New York State and imperiling Bit Digital’s operations there, legislators have introduced a bill seeking to impose a two-year moratorium on cryptocurrency mining.

Gladstein believes that Bit Digital and other companies would simply move to other states. Ultimately, he believes mining activity will largely settle in democracies. “You’re probably going to see over the coming decade the majority of infrastructure inside countries that have stronger rule of law,” he says.

For miners who must contend with the wild fluctuations in the value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, a reliable and stable business environment is most welcome.



I Spoke to the Experts. Bitcoin Isn’t Going to Change.

April 20, 2022
Credit...Illustration by The New York Times; 
Images by CSA-Images, and Maximkostenko, via Getty Images



By Peter Coy
Opinion Writer
You're reading Peter Coy's newsletter,. A veteran business and economics columnist unpacks the biggest headlines. 

The people behind Bitcoin, the No. 1 cryptocurrency by market value (and renown), are under heavy pressure to reduce its carbon footprint — the planet-warming emissions from burning fossil fuels for electricity to run the network’s computations, known as mining. I spoke with people on both sides of the argument and came away thinking that Bitcoin is highly unlikely to change its fundamental way of operating.

Bitcoin feels wasteful to a lot of people because its security depends on buying lots of specialized computing hardware that’s useless for any other purpose and then running it hard, which consumes joules and joules of electricity. The Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance calculates that Bitcoin mining, on the whole, consumes slightly more energy than gold mining, which is a fair comparison, since both Bitcoin tokens and gold are pitched as alternatives to fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar. Bitcoin mining consumes more electricity than Norway but slightly less than Egypt, the center says, and accounts for 0.62 percent of the world’s total electricity consumption.

Here is a mind-blowing stat about Bitcoin: Every second, the Bitcoin network performs about 200 quintillion hashes, which are essentially guesses about a certain very long string of digits. There’s a race among Bitcoin network participants, known as miners, to make guesses faster and faster so they can be first and win rewards in the form of Bitcoin. It’s cheaper for them than buying Bitcoin on the open market: The token’s price is up more than thirtyfold over the past five years.

As the miners get faster, the network automatically makes the problem they need to solve harder, essentially spinning the treadmill faster. The Bitcoin network was designed this way to limit the pace at which new blocks of verified data are formed to one every 10 minutes. Unlike with most other cryptocurrencies, there is a built-in ceiling on production of tokens. More than 90 percent of the 21 million Bitcoin that will ever exist have already been mined, making each one more valuable.

Pressure on Bitcoin to switch to a less energy-intensive approach is coming from several directions. Ethereum, the No. 2 cryptocurrency, is switching from proof of work, which Bitcoin uses, to proof of stake, which requires much less computing power and therefore does less damage to the environment. Briefly, you prove your work by doing those quintillions of calculations. You prove your stake by pledging cryptocoins that you own. As in a company’s shareholder vote, the people with the most coins have the biggest say.

The difference in energy consumed per transaction between the two systems is like the difference in height between the world’s tallest building and a single screw, according to one creative comparison. Once Ethereum makes the switch, Bitcoin will be the only one of the most highly valued cryptocurrencies using proof of work.

The European Parliament is moving toward insisting that all cryptocurrencies meet environmental sustainability standards, although in March a draft document stopped short of banning the proof-of-work system that Bitcoin uses. Also in March, Greenpeace USA, the Environmental Working Group, and other environmental advocacy groups began the Change the Code campaign, which involves advertising as well as putting pressure on cryptocurrency fanboys like Elon Musk of Tesla and Jack Dorsey of Block (formerly Square), as well as Abigail Johnson of Fidelity Investments, which manages mutual funds that invest in Bitcoin miners. The campaign got a $5 million boost from Chris Larsen, the executive chairman, a former chief executive and a co-founder of Ripple, a blockchain company for global enterprises.

There is no Bitcoin headquarters that you can call for an official response on this matter. Jameson Lopp, one of the currency’s defenders I spoke with, said, “There is no official anything when it comes to Bitcoin. There is no leader. There is only the protocol.”

Lopp, a co-founder and the chief technology officer of the Bitcoin storage company Casa, who describes himself as a professional cypherpunk, said it wasn’t up to people like him to defend Bitcoin. “I believe it defends itself. The game theory and the incentives are what keep this working. People can scream about environmental concerns all day long, but until you come up with a better system, it’s going to keep going.”

He and others also argue that Bitcoin isn’t as much of an energy hog as it first appears. Because Bitcoin miners can rapidly turn on or off, they are stabilizing the electrical grid in places such as Texas by throttling back when other demand is high and cranking up consumption when other demand is weak, advocates argue. Some of the electricity that Bitcoin uses is from energy resources that nobody else can easily access, such as overbuilt hydroelectric power plants, they say. (There’s some truth to this, but Bitcoin mining still contributes to global warming.)

Another Bitcoiner argument is that its proof of work method is more secure than proof of stake or other protocols. “The open question is not whether proof of stake is secure but whether it’s secure enough for a global form of digital gold. Bitcoin is,” said Ryan Selkis, a co-founder and the chief executive of Messari, which builds data and research tools for crypto. (Backers of proof-of-stake cryptos respond that their systems are just as secure as Bitcoin’s. “They’re literally being attacked by every hacker on earth, constantly. And they’re holding up,” said Larsen.)

There’s also some bad blood between the Bitcoin community and Larsen, whose company, Ripple, uses a security system that isn’t proof of work or proof of stake. In March, Selkis called Larsen a “Judas” on Twitter. The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple, Larsen, and another Ripple executive in 2020, charging that its sale of $1.3 billion in crypto tokens constituted an “unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering.” In an interview, Larsen said he thinks the S.E.C. is wrong because Ripple is a virtual currency and is thus exempt from securities regulation.

Make of those arguments what you will; the important fact is that there’s no evidence that the key players in Bitcoin are interested in making the big switch to energy-saving proof of stake. It wouldn’t benefit the miners, who have invested heavily in specialized computing technology that would go to waste. And there’s no groundswell for it in the other key interest group, the operators of nodes — computers that keep up-to-date digital records of crypto transactions. The node operators collectively decide whether each new block of transactions should or should not be legitimized and appended to the blockchain. Some fear that moving to proof of stake would diminish Bitcoin’s decentralization, which they value.

It’s possible that some Bitcoiners will decide to switch to proof of stake. That would be what the community calls a hard fork, as in a fork in the road, where people have to choose which direction to go. But “even if there is a fork, that fork will eventually fail, and it will have zero or close to zero economic value,” said Daniel Frumkin, the director of research at Braiins, a Bitcoin-mining software company that operates a network of miners called Slush Pool.

For Bitcoin to change direction would require “almost like a constitutional convention of sorts,” said Selkis. “Inertia usually wins.”

OK, but what if the European Parliament does ban proof of work someday and the United States and other nations follow suit? That’s the nightmare scenario for the Bitcoin community, which has a strong libertarian streak. “Bitcoin would not be a trillion-dollar asset if the European Union and the United States were doing their jobs” of maintaining sound money, Selkis said. “That’s the real reason they don’t like it. It exposes their underperformance.”

“At least as of today, there is no one world, global government,” said Lopp. “There will always be somewhere that these miners will be able to go.” He laughed and added, “Worst-case scenario, they could all go to El Salvador, which loves Bitcoin.” (El Salvador adopted Bitcoin as an official currency in September, though the experiment has had some hiccups.)

I see lots of reasons for Bitcoin to stick with its current game plan. Quintillions of reasons, actually.




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Spider fossils from 22 million years ago may have been preserved by sulphur secreted by algae

ABC Science /
By science reporter Belinda Smith
This 22-million-year-old spider glows in UV light, which helped palaeontologists piece together how it fossilised.(Supplied: Alison Olcott)

Gloopy goo that fatally snared spiders more than 22 million years ago may have also helped preserve them in exquisite detail.

Key points:
Soft-bodied animals such as spiders and insects tend to decay before they have a chance to fossilise

A palaeontological site in France is rich in soft-bodied animals, but the process of preservation has been a mystery

A new study of fossilised spiders suggests a sticky substance excreted by algae may have hardened the animals' exoskeleton

Researchers from the US and UK suspect sticky sulphurous secretions from algae hardened the brittle exoskeletons of the spiders and staved off decay, allowing them to fossilise.

The study, published today in Communications Earth & Environment, might also help direct palaeontologists to uncover more of these rare, delicate fossils, and get a better picture of ancient environments.

For Alison Olcott, a chemical palaeontologist at the University of Kansas and lead author of the study, the first hint that algae might be involved came when she and her colleague Matthew Downen discovered the fossils glowed.

In daylight, the spider fossils have a recognisable outline, but don't look too dissimilar from the rock they're embedded in.

But under a microscope that threw UV light on the fossils, the spiders lit up in crisp detail.


"All these amazing details, like little hairs … on the spiders were all of a sudden visible," Dr Olcott said.

"It was really exciting just how much more we could see, and we got very interested in what the chemistry of these fossils was that made them glow."

Study co-authors Alison Olcott (left) and Matthew Downen check out a glowing spider under the UV microscope.
(Supplied: Margaret Birmingham)

'A race against decay'

The spiders were originally found sandwiched between layers of sedimentary rock from Aix-en-Provence in the south of France, at a site discovered in the late 1700s.

Some 22.5 million years ago, the area hosted a lake or brackish lagoon, and it has yielded a wealth of fossils of organisms that lived in or near water, including insects, shrimp and, of course, spiders.

And it's these remains of softer, squishier animals that put Aix-en-Provence on the palaeontological map.

Amazing ancient arachnid in amber
A tiny arachnid discovered in 100-million-year-old amber fills a critical gap between today's spiders and spider-like arachnids that lived before dinosaurs.

Spider exoskeletons — their crispy outer layer — decay much faster than, say, bones, shells and teeth, which are composed of hard, mineralised material.

"And with fossilisation, it's always a race against decay," Dr Olcott said.

But no-one had teased out exactly why the Aix-en-Provence site managed to preserve so many ancient soft-bodied animals so well.

To find out, Dr Olcott and her colleagues borrowed eight fossil spiders from the French National Museum of Natural History.

They made "elemental maps" showing the chemical make-up of different parts of the fossils.

Then they matched the chemical elements to different colours thrown off by the fossils when illuminated with UV light.

The dark brown remains of the spiders' abdomens glowed orange under UV light, and were made mostly of carbon and sulphur.

A chemical map reveals a coating rich in sulfur (yellow) on this spider fossil, plus two kinds of diatom in pink around it.(Supplied: Alison Olcott)

Carbon was expected. Spider exoskeletons are made from chitin, and chitin has lots of carbon, but no sulphur.

So where did the sulphur come from?
To fossilise a spider, just add sulphur

A clue to the sulphur source came from the thousands of tiny, needle-like fossils embedded in the rock surrounding the spiders.

These, the researchers suspected, were diatoms: single-celled algae that live in capsules made of glass.

Excretions from diatoms, perhaps similar to these, could have stabilised spider chitin to the point it could fossilise.
(Getty Images: Alfred Pasieka/Science Photo Library)

Some diatoms exude gluey sulphur-rich substances, which help them clump together to create "diatom mats" that bloom on the water's surface.

So what Dr Olcott thought happened was an unfortunate spider wandered onto a diatom mat, got stuck, and was quickly encased by the sticky goo.

This formed a barrier that stopped oxygen from getting through to the corpse, and thwarted many microbes that would usually decompose it.

Sulphur in the diatom gloop also reacted with the chitin exoskeleton.

Chitin is made up of long chains that contain carbon. Should sulphur find its way in the mix, it links carbon atoms in neighbouring chitin chains.

This "bridging" would have bestowed extra strength to the chitin, Dr Olcott said.

"If this sulphurisation can happen on an hours-to-days scale, it really gives these soft-bodied organisms a fighting chance to be fossilised."

(Sulphur-bridging is commonly used today to harden rubbers, to make car tyres and the like, in the process known as vulcanisation.)

Eventually, the diatom mat sank to the bottom of the lake, where sediments covered the algae, along with the unfortunate creatures stuck on it.

And over the aeons, those sediments hardened and locked the fossils inside until they were brought to light once again in the 18th century.
Outside of Aix-en-Provence

Australian Museum and UNSW palaeontologist Matthew McCurry, who was not involved in the study, says the new research gets us closer to understanding what conditions are needed to fossilise more delicate species.

"The [fossil] record of spiders is really quite dismal across the whole world.

"They're small, fragile organisms, they don't turn into fossils very easily, so you need these really specific geochemical conditions to aid in their formation."

NSW farmer's fossil discovery
When Nigel McGrath hit heavy rock while ploughing a field, little did he realise he was sowing the seeds of a discovery some 15 million years in the making.

Knowing how spiders could be preserved might help palaeontologists uncover more similarly fragile fossils by narrowing their search to fossilised diatom mats, called diatomites, Dr Olcott said.

"So rather than just looking through all the rocks [at a site], you might first see what's in the diatomites."

Dr McCurry was wary of extrapolating the results of the new study to sites elsewhere.

"The work they've done on the fossils from that one province is great — they've associated the [diatom] microfossils and the specific [fossilisation] pathway for those fossil spiders.

"But they haven't yet done any chemical analyses on fossils from around the world.

"And so that's really the next step — to take that hypothesis that they've put forward in this paper, and see if that really does hold true across the rest of the world."

Ancient Spider Reveals a Secret Glow That Sustained It For Eternity


Spider fossil under UV light. 
(Olcott et al., Communications Earth and Environment, 2022)
NATURE

CARLY CASSELLA
21 APRIL 2022

A fossilized spider that glows under ultraviolet light has given away the secret of its exceptional 23-million-year-long existence.

When researchers placed the fossil and others like it under a fluorescent microscope on a whim, they were surprised to notice the subtle outline of the arachnids suddenly pop against their background.

"To our surprise they glowed, and so we got very interested in what the chemistry of these fossils was that made them glow," explains geologist Alison Olcott from the University of Kansas.

Analyses carried out using other forms of scanning technology, such as energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, revealed most of the mineral making up the fossils and their surrounds contained silicon.

Yet the darker patches on the fossils contained large quantities of two other elements – carbon and sulfur.

Looking closer, scientists realized the spiders weren't alone. Buried alongside and on top of them were a bunch of other organisms never before seen in fossils of the Aix-en-Provence fossil assemblage in France.

"[T]here were just thousands and thousands and thousands of microalgae all around the fossils and coating the fossils themselves," Olcott says.

For centuries, scientists have been studying the insect and fish fossils found in this region of France, but only now are we beginning to understand how these fragile creatures were preserved for all that time.

Unlike shells, teeth, and bone, soft tissue rarely fossilizes. And when it does, it requires a unique set of circumstances.

If not for mats of microalgae, researchers think it's unlikely the fossilized spider from Aix-en-Provence would have made a lasting impression.

In the past, other scientists have argued that if soft tissue is buried alongside single-celled algae, like diatoms, it could protect the fragile material from the degrading effects of oxygen.

But this new finding suggests there's something other than oxygen shielding at play.

If diatoms produce enough of a sticky extracellular substance in their mats, it could react with organic polymers found in another organism's soft tissue.

This could trigger a chemical process known as sulfurization, which takes carbon units from the spider's exoskeleton and cross-links it with sulfur from the algae mats. The result ultimately stabilizes carbon and keeps it from degrading as quickly.

"These microalgae make the sticky, viscous gloop – that's how they stick together," explains Olcott.

"I hypothesized the chemistry of those microalgae, and the stuff they were extruding, actually made it possible for this chemical reaction to preserve the spiders. Basically, the chemistry of the microalgae and the chemistry of the spiders work together to have this unique preservation happen."

The authors are still testing this hypothesis, but when they combed the literature on similarly aged fossils, they found the majority were exceptionally preserved in diatom-rich units.

The carbon-heavy chitin found in spider exoskeletons seems to interact particularly well with the microalgae's goo. While there are some carbon-rich areas outside of the spider fossil as well, these do not show carbon-sulfur complexes like those glowing yellow on the inside.

"The fact that these [carbon-sulfur] complexes are only found in association with the spider morphology indicates that it is likely that the spiders are the source of the organic material involved in sulfurization," the authors write.

(Olcott et al., Communications Earth and Environment, 2022)

Above: Electron image of fossilized spider abdomen overlain by chemical maps of sulfur (yellow) and silica (pink) in the magnified box.

Oftentimes when fossils like these are studied, they are only examined at a macroscopic scale, not a microscopic one, but the findings from this new research suggest that's an oversight.

In this instance, when the global pandemic stalled laboratory work, researchers used their time to examine the spider fossil at a microscopic level.

When they did, they found something entirely unexpected, something no one else had reported, despite all the centuries spent working on fossils from Aix-en-Provence.

In all likelihood, the discovery is relevant elsewhere, too.

"The next step is expanding these techniques to other deposits to see if preservation is tied to diatom mats," says Olcott.

"Of all the other exceptional fossil preservation sites in the world in the Cenozoic Era, something like 80 percent of them are found in association with these microalgae."

We might have diatoms to thank for some of the most fragile fossils in our possession today.

The study was published in Communications Earth & Environment.

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