The Work of Coal Waste in the Age of Cryptomining

Keywords: Cryptocurrency, energy transitions, coal mining, coal mine reclamation
Abstract Type: Poster Abstract

Abstract

Surface coal mine reclamation is the process through which environmental and human health hazards caused by coal mining are remediated. Mine reclamation involves a number of biochemical and physical interventions, among which are the neutralization of acid mine drainage, the extinguishing of fires, the revegetation and regrading of barren, steep slopes, and the filling-in of openings, pits, and other dangerous terrain. Since the 1980s, coal refuse has been used to generate electricity in Pennsylvania. The removal of coal refuse piles and their subsequent use as fuel for cryptocurrency mining, or as I’ll call it, cryptomining. When new technologies and long-standing problems meet, it’s easy to see how contestations over who has the authority to manage a changing environment, much less manage the resources that go into changing that environment, can arise. Building off of Andrea Nightingale's socioenvironmental state framework, which interrogates how studying management of the changing environment requires understanding how different actors and institutions create and contest social boundaries; and building off of Amber Huff and Andrea Brock's framework of accumulation by restoration, which asks us to interrogate how ecological restoration is used to stave off intertwines financial and environmental crises, I explore how the use of coal refuse as a fuel source for cryptomining opens up new frontiers for capital accumulation and allows us to explore how the collection and dissemination of information is politicized. I will present findings obtained from from qualitative textual analysis methods.