British farmer uses manure to mine Ethereum

A farmer from Denbighshire in Britain, Philip Hughes, is mining cryptocurrency using electricity generated from processing cow manure. The BBC reports.

Using an anaerobic digestion plant, the gas released from waste decomposition is burned and converted into electricity. A third of the electricity generated is used to power the GPUs. The remainder goes to the farm’s own needs.

Philip Hughes also rents out renewable energy sources. The bulk of the mining hardware on the farm belongs to Easy Crypto Hunter’s manager Josh Riddett. According to him, each installation is equipped with “a multitude of powerful computer graphics cards” with a total value of around £18,000 (over $25,000).

Hughes described his earnings from mining Ethereum as “good”.

“It largely depends on what day you ask that question,” he added, pointing to the coin’s volatility.

If the asset’s price falls significantly, the farmer plans to direct the computing power of the equipment to other purposes.

Mining cryptocurrencies on renewable energy has become a trend in recent months.

Earlier, payments company Square and infrastructure startup Blockstream announced a joint project to create a demonstration center for solar-powered Bitcoin mining in the United States.

In May, Marathon Digital Holdings announced the construction of a ‘green’ data centre in Texas with a capacity of 300 MW.

A detailed examination of why the negative environmental impact of Bitcoin mining is exaggerated can be read in ForkLog:

Much ado about nothing: why the problem of Bitcoin’s environmental impact is exaggerated

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