Repurposing waste heat from bitcoin mining can lower heating costs and mitigate emissions

This article is an excerpt from our research report titled "How Bitcoin Mining Can Transform the Energy Industry". The research report lays out five characteristics of bitcoin miners, which make them uniquely flexible energy consumers, and explains four energy problems bitcoin miners can help solve. This article explains one of these problems: How bitcoin mining can lower heating costs and mitigate emissions from heating. Let's get into it.

Heating is the world's largest energy end-use

Providing heating for homes, industries, and other applications is the world's largest energy end-use, accounting for almost half of global final energy consumption in 2021.

Industrial processes are responsible for 51% of the energy consumed for heating, while another 46% is consumed in buildings for space and water heating and, to a lesser extent, cooking. The remainder is used in agriculture, primarily for greenhouse heating.