Mining company Genesis Mining has announced the launch of a pilot project to use surplus energy from bitcoin mining to heat greenhouses in the Swedish city of Buden.
Genesis Mining has created special mining containers that will connect to the greenhouses through a ventilation system used to transfer excess energy. According to calculations carried out at the Luleå Technical University, a 550 kW container will be enough to heat a greenhouse of 300 square meters. even in cold Swedish climates.
However, Andreas Johansson, a senior lecturer at the Luleå Technical University, said that the potential of these containers could be three times greater – with an increase in the temperature difference, the heat dissipation from mining could heat the territory up to 900 square meters.
Genesis Mining management announced that the project has been in development for over a year. It is aimed not only at recycling excess energy waste, but also at developing the food and vegetable industry in the Swedish city of Buden. Mattias Vesterlund, Senior Researcher at the Swedish Research Institutes Network (RISE), explained that the 1MW data center could increase the independence of local vegetable markets by 8% by introducing more competitive products.
In addition to Genesis Mining and its subsidiary Hashpower For Science, the project has received support from the international ventilation and air conditioning equipment manufacturer Systemair, Luleå Technical University, RISE, the Boden Business Agency and local governments. Genesis Mining CEO and co-founder Marco Streng said the cryptocurrency industry is changing the world for the better, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of the environment. Therefore, Strang hopes that the pilot project will be successfully tested.
Boden Business Agency’s director of data center development, Nils Lindh, believes the project will provide an opportunity to expand the local food processing industry while promoting energy efficiency.
“This is a kind of effective symbiosis of different industries: cryptocurrency mining, growing and production of products, as well as energy. In case of successful testing, the project can be applied to large commercial production, ”said Lindh.
Braiins researchers conducted a study last year comparing the power consumption of Bitcoin mining and mainstream video games. They concluded that in November 2019, video games consumed 46% more electricity compared to mining Bitcoin. However, according to the Ohio State Oak Ridge Institute, Bitcoin mining consumed three times as much energy in 2018 as gold mining.
