Definition
Landfill gas mining powers ASIC miners with electricity made from methane captured at municipal landfills or biogas facilities. As buried organic waste decomposes without oxygen, microbes produce landfill gas that is typically around half methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Many sites lack a viable pathway to use this gas, so it is flared or escapes uncaptured. On-site generation turns that methane into electricity, and a co-located mining load provides a buyer for the resulting power.
From waste to power
A capture system collects the gas, which feeds a generator, micro-turbine, or gas engine to produce electricity. Because landfills are often distant from demand and lack grid interconnection sized for their output, a mobile, interruptible mining load is a natural fit: it can be deployed on-site without pipelines or transmission upgrades. The same logic extends to biogas from anaerobic digesters on farms and at wastewater plants, where manure and organic slurry are broken down to yield methane.
Why operators consider it
For a landfill or farm, the arrangement can create an incremental revenue stream from a previously wasted byproduct, sometimes at little upfront cost to the site owner. Capturing and combusting methane in an engine generally destroys it more completely than venting or an open flare, which is the basis for emissions-reduction claims; as always, the net effect depends on the baseline practice the project replaces.
This is closely related to other waste- and surplus-energy mining models. See our entries on flare gas mining and our guide to mining as a solution to methane waste on farms.
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In Simple Terms
Landfill gas mining powers ASIC miners with electricity made from methane captured at municipal landfills or biogas facilities. As buried organic waste decomposes without oxygen,…