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Over the last two years, Allrise Capital and its senior partner, Beijing’s Bitmain, have invoked restarting the paper mill four times.
The first time improved their odds of securing court approval for their ownership of the mill in April 2021. The second time was only a week after concluding their power contract with the PUD in August 2022. Public records show they had not mentioned power for the mill during months of negotiations. Only when they failed to accurately forecast power costs for their crypto-mining operations did they discover they could reopen the mill in three months—but only if the PUD agreed to a new, cheaper power contract for crypto-mining—a claim that looks questionable in hindsight. The third time was at the end of January 2023 when they invoked restarting the mill in hopes of getting $400,000 of taxpayer funds through a questionable application for a state grant. Now, it appears they are invoking restarting in hopes that State Senator Shelley Short will amend HB1416 to exempt their crypto-mining operations from the Clean Energy Transformation Act – legislation that will actually benefit our county by protecting our residential rates from being raised to subsidize Beijing’s crypto-mining. In testimony on House Bill 1416 to the Washington State House of Representatives Energy Committee hearing on January 30, 2023, Mr. Glenn Blackmon, the senior energy advisor to the state, was asked “Could you give me an example of what this bill is trying to address?” He answered that the Allrise/Bitmain crypto mining facility in Usk is the best example. “Under current law, they wouldn’t necessarily have to use clean electricity in compliance with CETA…, yet CETA says that all of the electricity that is used by customers in Washington should be clean…” And Allrise/Bitmain uses no clean energy.
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