A Bitcoin mining company is looking for Pennsylvania regulatory approval to burn fuel made from scrap tires at its power plant in Carbon County.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is holding a public hearing tonight, Monday, Dec. 18, on the Panther Creek Power Operating LLC air quality permit application.
The Panther Creek plant is in Nesquehoning, just outside the popular tourist destination of Jim Thorpe. This facility and a second power plant known as the Scrubgrass Plant in western Pennsylvania’s Venango County are owned and operated by Stronghold Digital Mining Inc.
“Stronghold is a vertically integrated Bitcoin mining company with an emphasis on environmentally beneficial operations,” the company says on its website.
Bitcoin is the most popular system of cryptocurrency, a type of digital money that uses encryption technology to make it secure, according to a prnewsonline.com release on how The Associated Press is referring to the financial technology. As with other cryptocurrencies, bitcoins are not physical bills or coins, the release states. Rather, they are lines of computer code that are digitally signed each time they travel from one owner to another.
Cryptocurrency transactions are recorded on a digital ledger known as a blockchain, according to the AP Style update: “It works like a chain of digital blocks that contain records of transactions. Each block is connected to those before and behind it, making it difficult for hackers to disrupt. To avoid detection, a hacker would need to change the block containing a particular record and all those linked to it.”
A panoramic view Oct. 16, 2023, from Mount Pisgah on the Switchback Railroad Trail in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, shows the Lehigh River running through wildlands plus a few homes about 6 miles west of the Stronghold Digital Mining Co.’s Panther Creek Power Operating LLC in Nesquehoning that burns anthracite coal refuse and No. 2 fuel for steam electricity generation, and which proposes to add tire-derived fuel to its mix.Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com
Environmental groups Save Carbon County, the Clean Air Council and PennFuture blasted the Panther Creek tire-derived fuel (TDF) proposal in a virtual news conference Thursday. Raising concerns about emissions in fueling what they called the “energy-intensive process” of cryptocurrency mining, the groups said residents “are calling on the DEP to put the community before profits, and reject Panther Creek’s request to further pollute the surrounding community,” according to a follow-up news release.
“Our organization, Save Carbon County, is focused on preserving the unique environment of Carbon County,” Linda Christman, the group’s president, said.
“The coal regions of our county seem to be attractive as a location for industries that pollute and would not be accepted in wealthier communities. The cumulative impact of these degrading uses is a real impediment to economic recovery in the region and to the quality of life for resident.”
A spokesperson for Stronghold Digital Mining declined to comment on Save Carbon County’s concerns ahead of Monday’s hearing: “We’re not commenting until after the meeting as we don’t want to prejudice the process.”
The Panther Creek application seeks DEP approval to allow the plant’s two existing electrical steam generating units to burn tire-derived fuel that would be chipped and processed prior to delivery to the plant, according to the pending 48-page application.
Panther Creek has an electricity generation capacity of 80 megawatts, and can switch its power flow from Bitcoin mining to the regional power grid, according to Stronghold. The plant currently combusts anthracite waste left over from Pennsylvania’s coal-mining history known as culm and, on startup, No. 2 fuel oil. The TDF would be a supplemental fuel comprising up to 15% of the fuel mixture. Stronghold says both of its Pennsylvania plants are “purpose-built to help solve Pennsylvania’s mining waste problem.”
“TDF has long been recognized as a valuable fuel in well-controlled plants, as well as cement plants,” the company says in its application. “In a 1991 report, EPA concluded, ‘Based on the experience and emissions data from power plants burning tire or TDF, the use of tires and TDF as supplemental fuel is viable. In many cases, the quality of the emissions actually improves with increased use of tires or TDF as supplemental fuel.”
The EPA in an archived webpage last updated in 2016 says “it is better to recover the energy from a tire rather than landfill it.” In 2003, more than 290 million scrap tires were generated in the U.S., according to the EPA’s information — nearly 100 million of these tires were recycled into new products and 130 million were reused as tire-derived fuel (TDF) in various industrial facilities. About 53 million tires per year are consumed as fuel in cement kilns across the United States, the EPA said.
Panther Creek’s application states the “DEP has permitted the combustion of tires and/or TDF as a supplemental fuel at several facilities in Pennsylvania, including Northampton Generating, Hercules Cement, Lafarge, Lehigh Cement, ESSROC and Viking Energy.”
The application proposes to keep emissions within its current Plantwide Applicability Limits permit. This facility is a “major source” for sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides, based on existing federally enforceable permit limits, with significant emissions from its 350-foot-high, 7.6-foot-diameter exhaust stack of three categories of particulate matter, according to the application; it’s considered a minor emissions source of volatile organic compounds, lead, fluorides and sulfuric acid.
The plant operates 24/7 and employs an estimated 49 people on site, according to the application.
The hearing Monday, Dec. 18, is scheduled for 6 to 9:30 p.m. at Panther Valley Junior/Senior High School, 912 Coal Region Way in Lansford, Pennsylvania. The DEP says representatives from its Air Quality Program will be in attendance to listen to public testimony. The public comment period for the application ends on Dec. 28.
DEP requests that those who wish to testify at the hearing submit a written notice of their intent. The notice should be sent to Northeast Region Air Quality Manager Mark Wejkszner, P.E, at mwejkszner@pa.gov. The department agreed to accept notices up to the day of the public hearing and said this written notice should include the person’s name, address, telephone number, and a brief description as to the nature of the testimony.
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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.