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1. So it's not so much "not providing power" for some political or philosophical reason but "not providing all the power they want."this is a pretty incoherent sentence. Not providing all the power they wish to purchase is, as per their argument, "not providing power", and the reasons given, "(a) they plan to use power and (b) not create jobs" are political and philosophical reasons.
The economic argument is "making money creates jobs when you spend the money, or invest it which in turn causes it to be spent".
The "global warming is a negative externality" argument wasn't made, if it were made would need inspection. Is there a current surplus of (hydro, net) power in Canada, perhaps not sustainable into the future but for the lifetime of the mining rigs contemplated?
>2. The miner wants the equivalent of ~500,000 apartments worth of power...which is substantial.
if it's currently in surplus, it's surplus, i.e. there aren't a half million apartments whose lights would go out
>3. The reason the miner wants this particular power from this particular provider is that it's cheap.
it's cheap indicates it's surplus
>4. If the miner got all the power they wanted it would be enough to drive up local utility rates.
price changes are how all economies allocate resources. consumption driving prices higher indicates more economic activity; it's a good thing. Wanting to stop other people from doing things is authoritarian and negative.
>5. The local utility + government aren't keen on this as it's a pretty blatent resource extraction with no local jobs being created.
We can look at the environmental impact of hydro power, and regulate it out of existence if we want, but given that there are existing dams with surplus power, I don't see an argument being made that this "extraction" has any negative impact. "Extraction" is what every human being has lived on since the stone age.