Three Examples of Repurposed Heat From Bitcoin Miners
I will never forget my brief time running Bitcoin, back in 2010-2011. Believe it or not, you could turn your laptop into a mining node with just a few programs. Sure, it would render my Macbook useless for doing anything else, eventually destroy the cooling fans, and heat up to temperatures only achieved by a microwave running on high power for five minutes. When I began to think about it though, the possible ways to divert heat from a Bitcoin mining node and use it for another purpose are quite vast. I even joked once to some friends, when meme stocks were all the rage a few years ago, that AMC Theatres could run nodes and use the excess heat to cook popcorn at the snack bars.
All kidding aside, here are three actual ways that heat from Bitcoin miners is being repurposed:
1. Space Heaters
It seems to be the most obvious use case. And it's simple and sensible. Bitcoin miners produce excess heat, so why not use it to heat a cold environment? In particular, the Heatbit heater makes it possible. For $1199, you can "make money while quietly heating your room." They come in three sleek flavors:
Stay warm through the crypto winter! The Heatbit miners use 168 ASIC chips, providing up to 14 TH/s mining power, and boast being "quieter than your fridge." They warm up to 500 square feet. The miners are connected to the Nicehash mining pool.
2. Whisky Making
MintGreen, a technology company based in Canada, specializes in heat recovery from Bitcoin mining. One of their projects is a partnership with Shelter Point Distillery, where they have designed a Bitcoin mining vessel called the Tumbler to help in the whisky barrel aging process.
3. Growing Greenhouse Vegetables
Genesis Digital Assets has partnered with renowned Swedish institutes, to buildout a vegetable growing greenhouse -- a greenhouse data center. The heat generated from a 600 kW container housing Bitcoin mining rigs is diverted to the greenhouse, where various different plants are being tested to see what will grow best.
These all sound pretty neat and practical. Taking it even a step farther, someone even built a hot tub that was heated from Bitcoin miners. Clearly, when it comes to repurposing heat, creativity is the name of the game. It seems that the sky is the limit, and innovation and ingenuity will continue to create new use cases.
