Bitcoin mining requires lots of energy. Consequently, ASIC miners yield such immense amounts of heat that they need dedicated cooling systems for heat dissipation.

Heat recovery is a low-carbon technology that cuts across various sectors of the economy. Low-temperature heat also known as low-grade heat expelled by miners is needed to heat buildings and homes and by specific manufacturing processes. The primary challenges in this field are coming up with effective ways to transfer and capture heat, in addition to sound economic use cases.

Competitive mining firms are browsing different ways to recover and repurpose waste heat to generate additional revenue streams and offset electricity costs. Correspondingly, maintaining ASICs at low temperatures avoids hardware damage, guarantees high performance, and reduces fire hazards.

However, the mining community has taken one step further in terms of temperature control. Many miners have come up with innovative ways to not only dissipate heat but even recycle it. Doing so improves their Bitcoin mining sustainability and profitability.

Read on to know about some ingenious ways and projects ASIC miners are counting upon to recycle ASIC heat.

Space heating at home

Surprisingly, using ASICs to heat houses in winter has become quite famous among the Bitcoin mining community. Installing ventilation pipes helps miners achieve this. Doing so redirects the heat directly from ASICs to different parts of the houses. Eventually, rather than paying for the costs of heating systems, miners get to warm their houses while earning BTC simultaneously.

Water heating

Another means to repurpose heat from ASIC miners at home is water heating. The process is a bit more complex than space heating because it needs some form of heat transferring tool — like a heat exchanger or an intercooler.

Greenhouse conditioning

Heat can be transferred from ASICs with an air duct system connecting the mining operation center to the greenhouse; or with immersion cooling technology via a heat exchanger.

Wood drying

Miners can offer the necessary heat for wood drying while aiding mitigate those losses through Bitcoin earnings.

Food production

Food production systems include supplementing heat and can be paired with a Bitcoin mining operation to offer it.

Besides these processes, there are mining projects that are helping decrease greenhouse gas emissions by repurposing the heat produced by the ASICs. These projects are prominent for setting up the economics and feasibility of green Bitcoin mining.

Canada — MintGreen

The important aspect of MintGreen’s sustainable mining model is that energy is used twice. For the first time it is used to mine Bitcoin, and secondly to offer zero carbon industrial heating.

Netherlands — GreenMine Container

A greenhouse tomato farm is co-locating with a liquid immersion cooled mining container in the Netherlands. This project mines cryptos and pipes the heat into an adjacent greenhouse. The heat from the miners is efficiently transmitted through a heat exchanger, removed using a non-corrosive oil, and transformed into hot water that heats the greenhouse.

Sweden — Genesis Mining Greenhouses

Genesis Mining offers a new meaning to “green” Bitcoin mining. This pilot project has collaborated with handpicked public and private firms in Sweden to create mining containers with specialized air flow systems that direct waste heat flows into a nearby greenhouse that produces fruits and vegetables.

The creative projects for repurposing heat are just one of many ways that Bitcoin’s environmental impact can be reduced. As the mining industry resumes optimizing and evolving, it is anticipated that innovative heat recovery applications become more common.