The citizens of Greenville, Pitt County, NC, SAY NO TO CRYPTO!

We demand that our City Council reject the amendment of Title 9, Chapter 4 of the City Code to establish "modular data processing facility" and "data processing center" as two separate uses, associated standards and zoning districts and to deny Compute North to come into the City of Greenville or the Industrial Park.

It's just bad business.
Compute North offers no real employment opportunities:  its 100MW Kearney, NE, operation has 8 employees; its Big Spring, TX, and North Sioux City, SD, facilities employ 2 each.  The 15 jobs that Compute North purports it will provide in Greenville will be dangerous, in nonstop, high-temperature, and 90+-decibel conditions.

In Washington state, for example, municipalities and power companies made investments based upon taxes, selling energy to cryptominers, and when the price of bitcoin dropped 80% (which it has done 4 times thus far and is currently in the midst of), these companies just shuttered, with cities, utilities, and employees left in the lurch.

Compute North and Greenville-ENC Alliance told the Planning and Zoning Commission that Compute North is making a “$55million investment” and that they are "still working through the tax income," but records show that Compute North paid a measly $3166.62 on its 100MW Kearney facility; Howard County, TX, taxes paid on its Big Spring facility (which is adjacent to an airport tarmac) were $6760.46.  And Greenville Utilities will pay no tax on its added revenue.

It's bad for Greenville.  
When Compute North was trying to locate its facility in Belvoir, NC, GUC stated that its shareholder-customers' rates would not go up or might even lower, but that is not the case in places like Plattsville, NY, where a moratorium was placed on cryptomining after electricity rates increased dramatically.  If GUC is expecting a meager $1M added revenue and will actually pass it on as savings to its "shareholder"-consumers, that comes out to a whopping $6 annual savings on our light bills.

The proposed amendments are not specific to the Industrial Park but rather to the entire city of Greenville, from office-residential, office, downtown commercial, downtown commercial fringe, general commercial on up.  If cryptomines are built at the Industrial Park and every substation/transformer in Greenville that falls within this proposed zoning, there will be a loud hum throughout the city and into the county that will affect every residence, business, school, and house of worship, and will drive future business development away.

It’s bad for the environment.
Compute North’s 150MW Belvoir proposal would have used more electricity than the entire city of Wilson, NC.  On December 9, GUC told the City Council that Compute North would become their largest customer by a factor of 10. The General Assembly just passed legislation to reduce carbon emissions 70% by 2030:  how is GUC going to comply with a customer like that?  China banned cryptomining last May because it crippled their power grid.  Why would Greenville take China's sloppy seconds?

It’s bad ethics.
Cryptomining yields an unregulated, virtual currency that is the currency of choice of drug cartels, human traffickers, and ransomware hackers that are linked to nations like Russia.  Investment in it is gambling.

People move to and stay in Greenville because of the quality of life and the bucolic nature of Pitt County.  We are on the precipice of a period of tremendous growth, but our civic and business leaders need to make good choices to ensure that that growth is positive.

Cryptomining is not data processing - processing means that one thing leads to another, and something important is saved; it’s not data farming - farming means that you plant something, tend it, reap the fruits, and replant again; it’s data MINING, which takes, in this case, energy (a LOT of it) and doesn’t replace it with a tangible product, jobs, tax revenue.  

Vote NO on Crypto!