Bitcoin mining can offer the incentives to take capital-intensive methane emission reduction projects off the ground and help them scale.
A new peer-reviewed scientific paper titled ‘An integrated landfill gas-to-energy and Bitcoin mining framework’ highlighted how Bitcoin mining can help fight climate change. More specifically, the paper delved into utilizing Landfill Gas to Energy projects to power mining operations. These projects convert methane, a greenhouse gas emitted through landfill waste management processes, into energy, which can power numerous use cases. Methane is several times more harmful than carbon dioxide in the climate scenario.
The paper argued that the incentivization drawn by Bitcoin mining could act as the perfect motivator for miners to switch to these alternate energy sources that help tackle the worsening climate crisis. Methane mitigation projects are capital-intensive and require massive government subsidies to set up and operate. They only make financial sense over the long term, preventing capital from being raised to set them up from private and public sources.
Moreover, governments across the world are yet to act to drive such projects from the ground. Connecting methane project developers with Bitcoin miners can bring in instant incentivization for the developers, helping them make the projects financially viable quickly and scale to mitigate greater amounts of methane.
Image showing how energy from landfill projects can be utilized. Source: Science Direct
“Bitcoin’s economic incentives, available globally for miners in any location, may offer an innovative solution for encouraging methane mitigation without the need for government incentives, presenting a scalable and novel solution for rapid deployment,” the paper read.
Another paper published by the Institute of Risk Management in 2023 concluded with similar findings, mentioning Bitcoin mining can reduce global emissions by 8%. That paper, too, looked into projects converting methane emissions into clean energy.
Bitcoin Miners Already Leveraging Energy From Emission Reduction Projects
To that end, Bitcoin miner MARA has dipped its feet into acquiring clean energy from Landfill Gas to Energy projects. It signed a deal with Utah-based Nodal Power in 2023 to receive power generated from methane emissions for its mining purposes. The miner also signed a deal with the Kenyan government in 2024 to build renewable energy infrastructure in the country.
