Fueling bitcoin mining machines with literal waste is an emerging trend in mining as a host of new companies focus on mining this abundant and otherwise wasted energy resource. Contrary to the prevalent political narrative that bitcoin mining is destroying the planet, the efforts of these dump miners demonstrate that nothing could be further from the truth.
In fact, the net positive effects of these mining crews are enough to silence environmental critics forever. This article explores the early stages of companies building mining operations in landfills and examines the potential opportunities this resource – read: waste – presents for Bitcoin.
The Emerging Bitcoin Garbage Trend
Most cases of dumps and bitcoin discussion usually involve very early adopters who mined absurd amounts of cheap bitcoin on their computers and then lost or threw away their hard drives which contained fortunes. One of the first bitcoin miners is even planning an expensive landfill excavation project to recover half a billion dollars in misplaced digital gold. Another dump made headlines due to its response to an inordinate amount of “incompressible foam” that a bitcoin mining company attempted to dump.
Those crazy stories aside, today’s bitcoin miners target dumps so they can earn new bitcoins, not as targets to collect old ones. Vespane Energy and XcelPlus International are two of the early entrants into this new segment of the bitcoin mining industry. I’ve heard of other similar projects being built stealthily that will join them following public announcements coming in a year or two. In a recent study on the environmental effects of bitcoin mining, the White House directly mentioned landfill-focused bitcoin mining efforts.
But not all approaches to landfill-powered bitcoin mining are the same. Vespane, for example, “uses methane from landfills to power bitcoin mining,” according to its website. This business model can quickly affect a sizable amount of large-scale methane emissions reduction since landfill waste is responsible for approximately 11% of global methane emissions. XcelPlus, by comparison, uses plasma gasification machines to generate heat energy and also earns disposal fees for the waste it receives from landfills in addition to bitcoin mining rewards – a big deal two for a !
Quantification of the global supply of waste
So what exactly is the abundance of waste as a resource for bitcoin mining? The short answer is: very.
Here is some data to detail just how abundant the global waste supply is:
Getting an accurate count of how many landfills exist around the world is next to impossible (Google certainly isn’t of any help). But there is a trash clock that provides a real-time count of how much trash is created each day. Landfills can be an energy boon for bitcoin miners.
North America has grabbed the headlines for becoming the emerging Mecca for Bitcoin mining companies. So, for the purposes of this article, it should be noted that the United States alone is home to over 3,000 active landfills and around 10,000 inactive ones. Canada has about 3,000 landfills, according to a working paper released earlier this year. Both countries were among the top five waste-producing countries. And both countries ranked among the top two countries in terms of waste generation per capita.
The line graph below visualizes the annual growth in the world’s total waste supply from estimates published by Smithsonian Magazine in an article asking when the world will reach “peak waste”. The answer? Not anytime soon.
Advantages of mining bitcoin in landfills
Garbage has unique advantages as a fuel source that readers should not overlook. On the one hand, its abundance opens up a huge opportunity for potential hash rate growth as infrastructure for landfill methane capture and plasma gasification is installed. And the data cited in the previous section amply supports the abundance of litter. On the other hand, landfills are spread all over the world – trash is everywhere. Similar to the distribution of the bitcoin network itself, miners can go almost anywhere to turn waste into energy for bitcoin mining. Additionally, this form of energy is truly stranded and wasted, making miners not only a buyer of last resort for this resource, but also one of the only buyers. Reduction of methane from landfills by other means is limited.
Last but not least, bitcoin mining in landfills amplifies eco-friendly narratives around bitcoin mining that thwart seemingly relentless criticism from climate activists. Some reports refer to landfills as “super emitters”. Landfills are the third largest anthropogenic source of methane in the world. And of the trillions of pounds of waste produced each year, some “extremely conservative” estimates suggest that just 33% of that waste is handled in an environmentally responsible manner.
The stage couldn’t be set better for bitcoin miners to literally consume garbage and reduce methane emissions. XcelPlus, for example, categorically spells out the pollution reduction benefits of its form of bitcoin mining. According to its website, “The amount of energy consumed by the Bitcoin mining process is vast, expensive and polluting… By channeling waste coal, garbage and other hazardous waste streams through our gasifier XcelMore Plasma, it can convert 50 tons of waste per day into energy.”
It’s no exaggeration to say that it could be over for environmental critics of bitcoin mining.
The Future of Waste and Bitcoin
Most of the headlines in recent years about miners using stranded energy resources have focused on conventional fuels like solar, natural gas, and others. But the production of waste is almost endless, to the point that some analysts say we “run out of space” to store it all. And now Bitcoin mining companies are building and deploying technology to harness literal waste as an energy source for mining. Not only is it a somewhat infinitely renewable resource (using the term unconventionally but not inaccurately), but feeding the bitcoin network with waste also undermines bitcoin’s environmental criticisms since the benefits of limiting emissions waste are indisputable.
Landfill mining showcases the ingenuity and creativity of bitcoin mining, as magical internet money entrepreneurs use energy resources that no one else wants or can mine. Soon, the infrastructure for the money badger will be backed by real garbage, making the world’s largest decentralized financial network more resilient than ever.
This is a guest post by Zack Voell. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.