The prospect of mining cryptocurrency with renewable energy is an intriguing idea, particularly if the renewable energy is free of monetary cost. Consider mining Bitcoin via renewable natural gas (RNG), i.e. methane from cow manure (a perk of owning livestock that comes with no additional cost). This work investigates two calculations: the quantity of usable energy produced by typical bovine livestock and the amount of value the Bitcoin network pays on average for a Watt-hour of energy. The quatities shown below update on every page load to reflect the current values for the price of BTC in USD, network block reward, and average block transaction volume. See cow.py for the implementation of the calculations presented here.
According to the Agricultural Waste Management Field Handbook, a cow can produce between and pounds of waste per day based on a normalized animal unit of 1000 lbs (i.e. every 1000 lbs of bovine live stock produces between and lbs of manure per day). Furthermore, research suggests that cow manure outgases between and L of methane per kg of manure. This equates to to kg of methane gas production per day assuming the density of methane at standard temperature and pressure is g/L. A kilogram of methane gas contains approximately 50MJ of energy. Modern methane-based electric generators can operate at a thermodynamic efficiency in the range of %. Assuming 86400 seconds in a day, a cow produces approximately to Watts (J/s) of usable electric power from RNG.
A Bitcoin transaction is estimated to require approximately kWh of energy to confirm. Based on current network activity, there are on average transactions per block mined in the Bitcoin network. Therefore, a block requires, on average, MWh of energy to mine.
The current block reward in the Bitcoin network is BTC per block. As of , the price of BTC is around $. So, a new block is worth at least $ plus transaction fees associated with the mined transactions which are currently negligible in comparison to the block reward. This is equivalent to saying the Bitcoin network pays ~$ per Watt-hour to secure the network.
If a cow produces ~ to MJ of usable (i.e. accounting for generator efficiency) energy per day in the form of RNG, and said cow is paid fair market rate from the Bitcoin network for its RNG-based electric output, the cow should earn about $ to $ per month. If you assume a % reduction in output due to various parasitic losses in RNG capture and conversion to electricity as well as an additional % reduction due to unplanned outages, downtime due to upgrades, etc., then the cow's conservative earning potential is in the ballpark of $ to $ per month.
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