in a Press release, Digital marathon entries announced a partnership with nodal power, a renewable energy developer and operator, to launch a pilot project to mine bitcoins powered solely by energy derived from landfill methane. The already active 280kW mining project is located in Utah and represents a step forward for companies in implementing environmentally beneficial bitcoin mining technologies.
Marathon’s announcement comes after the publication of a report co-published by Marathon and bitcoin Magazine Pro: “Profiting from trash: bitcoin mining offers a cost-effective solution to mitigate methane emissions from landfills” which outlines the potential of bitcoin mining to cost-effectively reduce methane emissions from landfills. According to the report, more than 50% of US landfills release their methane emissions directly into the atmosphere, meaning they do not employ solutions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. This trend towards vented methane represents both an environmental problem (methane emissions are 80 times more powerful in terms of greenhouse effect compared to CO2) but also an economic and energy inefficiency, since massive quantities of this dense gas in energy is not used.
Apparently, bitcoin mining can change this calculation in a positive way.
“Do you want to pay to comply, or be paid to be compatible…if you prefer to get paid, you should consider bitcoin mining,” Marathon Chief Growth Officer Adam Swick said in an interview with bitcoin magazine on the issue of increased federal regulation of methane in US landfills.
In a request for comment, Swick framed the cost-benefit analysis for landfill owners, highlighting the emerging alignment between environmental health and mining’s incentive to seek profits: “to any landfill owner, municipality, public or private entity that has a landfill and is struggling to know what to do with their methane. – we would love to talk about how to improve the economy on your site and I think you will be very impressed with what bitcoin mining can do for your landfill.Swick went on to say that this “really is one of those rare win-wins” from both an ESG and capitalist perspective.
Daniel Batten, co-founder of CH4 Capital, a venture capital firm focused on methane mitigation (also cited in “Profit from garbage”) had this to say about Marathon’s announcement: “Since (Fred) Thiel took over as CEO, Marathon has consistently pioneered the use of recycled and renewable energy. First with the migration of 100 MW to the King Mountain wind farm and now with the use of negative greenhouse energy from landfills.” Batten has been a long-time advocate of mining bitcoins with landfill methane, arguing that he has the potential to help the overall carbon footprint of the bitcoin network become carbon negative already in December 2024. Charlie Schumacher, vice president of corporate communications at Marathon, emphasized that miners can serve as an important part of sustainable energy infrastructure: “I think what is starting to happen is that people are realizing that bitcoin mining is actually a technological solution for the energy sector.…if you think about it from an energy point of view, miners could be your first customer for a new generation project when it comes online. bitcoin mining can also be the way to achieve your ESG (methane mitigation or heat recycling) goals… You can see these positive externalities arising from mining as the primary use case for the customer, which is very interesting. “
This launch of the Utah pilot project and continued exploration of bitcoin mining’s ability to bolster environmental protection and critical energy infrastructure comes at a time when discussions are underway regarding the use of energy from data centers in general, such as those generated by the Biden Administration. “Executive order on the safe and reliable development and use of artificial intelligence”.
While this 280kW deployment is a small step in deploying landfill mining operations, Swick noted the potential magnitude of mitigating landfill methane through bitcoin incentives: “People are starting to understand how big it is.” the environmental impact of this because, again, people hadn’t even considered these abandoned landfills in the past because there was no other solution. So this may be bigger than people think.“
