Can Bitcoin heat Canada? On Thursday, Canada’s MintGreen, a cryptocurrency clean-tech company and self-described “energy economics hacker” that has developed Digital Boilers to recover electricity from Bitcoin mining to produce low-carbon heating for municipal and industrial customers, announced that it is part of an innovative partnership with the city of North Vancouver and city-owned utility company Lonsdale Energy Corporation (LEC) to use energy generated from crypto mining as a community heating source.
According to a statement issued from MintGreen on Thursday, North Vancouver and LEC in 2022 will introduce an undisclosed number of Digital Boilers, which MintGreen says will prevent 20,000 tons of greenhouse gases per MW from entering the atmosphere (compared to natural gas).
MintGreen says its Digital Boilers recover more than 96 percent of the electricity used for bitcoin mining in the form of heat energy that can be used to sustainably heat communities and service industrial processes. Cryptocurrency miners run at full capacity 365 days a year, which according to MintGreen, creates a unique opportunity to provide a reliable and clean heating baseload for North Vancouver’s district energy system.
“Being partners with MintGreen on this project is very exciting for LEC, in that it’s an innovative and cost competitive project, and it reinforces the journey LEC is on to support the City’s ambitious greenhouse gas reduction targets,” Lonsdale Energy Corporation CEO Karsten Veng said in a comment on the partnership.
According to a 2015 report from the UN Environment Programme titled “District Energy in Cities” and furnished by MintGreen, district energy systems are emerging as “a best practice approach for providing a local, affordable and low-carbon energy supply. With cities around the world tightening carbon regulations and increasing carbon taxation, North Vancouver Council passed a motion in 2019 for the City to increase its greenhouse gas reduction targets to achieve net zero by 2050, and reduce emissions by 80 percent below 2007 levels by 2040. Additionally, Canada has proposed a $170 per ton carbon tax to take effect in 2029 that will drive up the recurring cost of conventional natural gas, widely used as a heating source.
