Here’s some data to detail just how abundant the world’s supply of trash is:
Getting an accurate overview of how many landfills exist in the world is almost impossible (Google is absolutely no help). But there is a garbage clock that gives a real-time count of how much garbage is created every day. Dumps can be an energy bonanza for bitcoin miners.
North America has made headlines for becoming an emerging Mecca for bitcoin mining companies. So, for the purposes of this article, it’s worth noting that the United States alone is home to more than 3,000 active landfills and roughly 10,000 inactive ones. Canada has approximately 3,000 landfills of its own, according to a discussion paper published earlier this year. Both countries were listed in the top five garbage producing nations. And both countries ranked as the top two countries for waste production per capita.
The line chart below visualizes annual growth in the world’s total garbage input from estimates published by Smithsonian Magazine in an article asking when the world will reach “peak garbage.” The answer? Not soon.
Source
Advantages of Landfill Bitcoin Mining
Garbage has some unique advantages as a fuel source that readers should not overlook. First, its abundance opens up a huge opportunity for potential hash rate growth as landfill methane capture and plasma gasification infrastructure is installed. And the data cited in the previous paragraph confirms more than the amount of garbage. For another, landfills are globally distributed – garbage is everywhere. Like the distribution of the Bitcoin network itself, miners can go almost anywhere to turn trash into energy for bitcoin mining. Moreover, 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. Landfill methane reduction in other ways is limited.
Finally, and most importantly, bitcoin mining in landfills provides the eco-friendly narratives surrounding bitcoin mining that counter seemingly non-stop climate activist criticism. Some reports label landfills as “super emitters.” Landfills are the world’s third largest man-made source of methane. And of the trillions of pounds of trash produced each year, some “extremely conservative” estimates suggest that barely 33% of the waste is managed in any kind of environmentally conscious way.
The stage couldn’t be better set for bitcoin miners to consume literal garbage and reduce methane emissions. XcelPlus, for example, directly touts the pollution reduction benefits of its form of bitcoin mining. According to their website, “The amount of energy consumed by the Bitcoin mining process is enormous, expensive and polluting… By funneling waste coal, trash and other hazardous waste streams through our XcelPlus Plasma Gasifier, it can convert 50 tons of waste per day into energy .”
It is not hyperbolic to say that this may be game over for environmental criticism of bitcoin mining.
The future of trash and bitcoin
Most of the headlines in recent years about miners using stranded energy resources have focused on conventional fuels such as solar, natural gas and others. But garbage production is almost endless, to the point that some analysts say we are “running out of space” to store it all. And now bitcoin mining companies are building and implementing technology to harness literal garbage as an energy source for mining. Not only is this a somewhat infinitely renewable resource (using the term in an unconventional but not inaccurate way), but powering the Bitcoin network with garbage also undermines environmental criticism of bitcoin since the benefits of limiting garbage emissions are indisputable.
Dump mining puts the ingenuity and creativity of bitcoin mining on full display as magical internet money entrepreneurs tap into energy resources that no one else will or can tap into. Soon, infrastructure for the honey badgering of money will be backed by actual garbage, making the world’s largest decentralized financial network more resilient than ever.
This is a guest post by Zack Voell. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.
