One of the biggest bitcoin mining operations in the world, Genesis Mining, has been focusing on an experiment with Systemair, Lulea Technical University, the Swedish Science Institute, and the local Boden Municipality.
Teams in Sweden are designing a device that transforms excess heat from bitcoin Genesis mining to greenhouse electricity operations.
Bitcoin mining is intensely competitive and the network uses a lot of energy to protect transfers and mint fresh coins.
For example, the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index (CBECI) indicates that bitcoin (BTC) hashrate absorbs an average 12.54 GW and an annualized consumption amount of about 88.14 TWh.
Out of 20 mining pools, there are 150 exahash per second (EH/s) pointing to the BTC chain.
This week, Genesis Mining has announced a new groundbreaking project that the organization is collaborating on with a few teams.
Genesis has operated in Boden, Sweden, a wide area around the coastal town of Lulea for four parties.
In collaboration with Genesis, Systemair, the local municipality of Boden, Lulea Technical University and the Swedish Research Institute have established a system that transforms excess mining heat into greenhouse electricity.
The goal of the pilot is to recycle excess resources from bitcoin mining to renewable sources of heat.
Genesis Mining Is Converting Excess Bitcoin Datacenter Heat Into Greenhouse Power in Sweden
Genesis Mining‘s custom container.
According to the participants, the pilot plans to address supporting Sweden’s objective toward self-sufficient food production.
The study is being promoted by Genesis Mining’s philanthropic arm dubbed “Hashpower For Science.” Mattias Vesterlund, Senior Researcher at RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden) explained how the project can achieve self-sufficient production models.
“A 1 MW datacenter would have the ability to strengthen the local self-sufficiency up to 8% with products that are competitive on the market,” Vesterlund detailed.
Genesis Mining’s custom-built crypto mining storage containers will be located adjacent to the greenhouse. The container is tethered to the greenhouse by leveraging a custom-built air duct system that carries the miner’s excess heat.
Genesis Mining Is Converting Excess Bitcoin Datacenter Heat Into Greenhouse Power in Sweden
Marco Streng the cofounder and CEO of Genesis Mining said that decentralized applications will transform the world, “but all those benefits can’t come at the cost of the environment.”
“Genesis Mining has always preferred locations that offered 100% renewable energy sources, that’s why we’ve focused so much on the Nordics,” Streng detailed.
But as the industry leader, we view it as our moral and ethical responsibility to push the industry forward, and finding a way to convert our excess energy has been a major priority.”
Streng further added:
We look forward to scaling this project and bringing it to not only more of our own datacenters — but to others as well.
A Senior Lecturer from Lulea Technical University, Andreas Johansson, has been making calculations based on the project’s design and Sweden’s cold climate.
“For the cold climate in the north of Sweden, our calculations show that a 300 m2 greenhouse can easily be heated with a 550 kW container, even with outdoor temperatures reaching almost -30℃,” the lecturer said. But the potential is much bigger than that.
In this estimate, the temperature differential over the greenhouse is just 10 degrees as we presume a DC output temperature of 35°C and a GH temperature of 25°C.
If the DC performance is raised to 55°C, the GH region can be tripled to 900 m2."
Genesis and the teams in Sweden are not the only ones who have been dreaming about leveraging surplus heat from bitcoin mines.
Two years ago, a French company named Qarnot launched a home heater called the "Crypto-Heater or QC-1" that heats a space in your home while the consumer mines crypto properties.
Some people have invented methods to use surplus mining heat to do items like garage heating or distill alcoholic drinks.
Ethereum mines were used to heat homes and a few Russian Babushkas not only mined BTC in the province of Siberia, but often used heat by miners.
Bitcoin miners used excess mining heat to raise tomatoes.
Genesis Mining and community participants have conducted a webinar on the implementation of the Bitcoin Hybrid Greenhouse Mining Method.
