North Vancouver, part of the Canadian district of British Columbia, is on a path to become the first city that employs bitcoin mining for heating residential and commercial buildings. The initiative should be available from 2022 after a partnership between the cryptocurrency miner – MintGreen – and the Lonsdale Energy Corporation (LEC).

BTC Mining as an Alternative Heating Option

Bitcoin mining’s impact on the environment has been causing significant controversy recently, especially after Elon Musk made remarks on the matter and his EV giant Tesla stopped receiving BTC payments because of it. And while the primary cryptocurrency, by all means, has its merits, and many consider it to be a key player in the future financial network, mining it consumes a considerable amount of electricity.

As such, the Canadian city North Vancouver – home to more than 50,000 people – intends to allocate released energy from the process into heating the buildings of its residents. According to a recent press release, the Lonsdale Energy Corporation (LEC) will team up with the local cryptocurrency miner – MintGreen – to initiate the first stages at the beginning of 2022.

During its engagement, the latter asserted that its “Digital Boilers” will prevent 20,000 tonnes of GHGs from entering the atmosphere per MW compared to natural gas. Colin Sullivan – CEO of MintGreen – commented:

“The complex issue of climate change requires innovative solutions, and LEC, with the City of North Vancouver, is showing tremendous leadership in environmental stewardship.”

Karsten Veng – Chief Executive Officer at Lonsdale Energy Corporation – also raised hopes that the collaboration would be beneficial for the city’s greener future:

“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.”

Can BTC Mining Become Fully Renewable?

According to Anthony Scaramucci – the founder and CEO of SkyBridge – the answer is yes. Moreover, he predicted that this could happen in less than ten years:

“We project that bitcoin mining will be fully renewable by the end of the decade. In the interim, carbon offsets represent an effective way to green the bitcoin network and facilitate adoption by ESG-minded investors.”

Apart from his statement, Scaramucci also partnered with the climate tech company – MOSS Earth – to purchase and respectively retire tokens representing nearly 40,000 tons of carbon. The transaction aimed to neutralize the estimated CO2 footprint of BTC generated from SkyBridge’s multi-strategy funds and the First Trust SkyBridge Bitcoin Fund.