Flower powered: Bitcoin miner heats greenhouses in the Netherlands

Published at: Feb. 17, 2022

Bitcoin (BTC) mining generates a lot of “waste” heat. As energy prices spiral out of control in Europe, miners have come up with creative ways of recycling the heat generated by solving valid Bitcoin blocks. 

Whereas in Norway, a miner is drying wood from the local timber mill, across the North Sea in the Netherlands, a miner is heating greenhouses to grow produce and bloom “Bitcoin flowers.”

In a win-win partnership between a Dutch farmer and a Bitcoin miner, Bitcoin Bloem mines Bitcoin and bud flowers in greenhouses in the province of North Braband, southeast of Rotterdam.

It works like this: Bitcoin Bloem mines BTC in the farmer’s greenhouses and pays the electricity bill; the farmer gets free heat to grow its crops. Consider the “Bitcoin flowers” that Bitcoin Bloem sells the cream in the coffee to the climate-friendly operation.

Bert de Groot, the founder of Bitcoin Bloem, told Cointelegraph that the operation ​​“reduces the use of natural gas” in the greenhouse growing process, as Bitcoin miner heat replaces polluting gas heaters.

Plus, using BTC miners to heat saves both the farmer and Bitcoin Bloem a pretty penny. For the farmer, miner heat makes sense because natural gas prices have "skyrocketed." For Bitcoin Bloem, they get access to cheaper electricity.

When asked whether the Netherlands could welcome more BTC miners in the future, de Groot said the country could “be an optimal location for Bitcoin mining.”

Related: Canadian city plans to supply residents’ heat using Bitcoin mining

“Most large scale data centers of tech giants are located in the Netherlands, for example, Google and Facebook, because there is an abundance of cooling water and cheap electricity for large scale operations.”

He added that the “Texas solution would be interesting to roll out in the Netherlands.” The Texas solution revolves around “load balancing,” and working in tandem with local authorities to regulate power demand.

Currently, the Netherlands remains a relatively strict European country about cryptocurrency activities. However, grassroots movements such as Domino's franchises offering salary top-ups in BTC and Dutch football clubs supporting Satoshi's invention are building momentum.  

The flowers that Bitcoin Bloem sells are appropriately named “White Rabbit” and “Blue Pill. In a jibe at  the energy FUD that is often slung at Bitcoin, the website jokes, “We offer you flowers for your Bitcoin because your bitcoin is a waste of energy too.”

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