This article is from es.cointelegraph.com and the original article can he read here
The Bitcoin Community (BTC) is up to its old tricks again, dismantling the FUD and “filling orange” to the officials of distant destinations.
At the foot of Lake Atitlán, a bucolic but impoverished region of Guatemala, a Bitcoin project has managed to get a miner into the hands of the local mayor. The process has boosted local revenue while improving air quality.
In Panajachel, Guatemala, a community of nearly 20,000 people is turning to Bitcoin after local mayor Cesar Piedrasanta took delivery of an old Bitcoin S9 miner. It is the first municipality in Central or South America that mines BTC.
Although this is exceptional in itself, there are two important consequences. First of all, mining with a “5-year-old” miner helps “address the e-waste (or ‘e-waste’) narrative associated with bitcoin mining,” Bill Whittaker, part of the Bitcoin Lake team, told Cointelegraph.
The term “e-waste” refers to the replacement of physical mining infrastructure with newer and more efficient models. A moratorium on mining in New York recently addressed the reported issue, and a Science Direct report claims that a Bitcoin transaction produces 272 grams of e-waste because most mining equipment is old. However, the mayor of Guatemala manages very well with his old S9.
Secondly, With the proceeds from the Bitcoin miner, the team hopes to solve the problems plaguing the wastewater treatment plant..
The wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) is a big polluter “because of the cracked joints located in the upper part of the digester of the plant, there is not enough pressure to burn the methane emissions from the plant”. As a result, unpleasant and smelly pollutants pollute the air.
Whittaker and his team intend to repair the WWTP and then capture the leaking biogas to use as a source for power generation. Everyone wins: cleaner air, renewable energy, and more Bitcoin.
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– Re-flaring of the WWTP’s methane byproduct will not only improve air quality, but will allow for a controlled capture and analysis of the plant’s biogas production.– Use Panajachel’s WWTPs biogas to produce electricity and power additional Bitcoin miners. pic.twitter.com/CV9CWF6LYW
— WildBTC (@BillWhittaker11) March 28, 2022
– The reuse of the WWTP methane by-product will not only improve air quality, but will allow controlled capture and analysis of the plant’s biogas production.
– Use the biogas from the Panajachel WWTP to produce electricity and feed more Bitcoin miners.
Whittaker argues that “the poorest countries/municipalities don’t have the resources to generate expensive electricity from fossil fuels, but they do generate a lot of waste that produces methane.” Not only can Bitcoin be mined from these residues, but consequently a monetary return can be generated for the local population:
“The goal of this proof of concept is to capture wasted fuel and convert biogas into electricity/bitcoin.”
Biogas as an energy source for Bitcoin mining is winning popularity: a Slovak Bitcoin miner is making a profit of waste, while the Guatemalan project is barely getting by.
Whittaker wants to highlight the “real stars of the show” involved in the project: two high school seniors named Madaket and Kate. They “came up with the idea to focus on sustainable bitcoin mining for their final project”.
In this video from Instagram, they explain how Bitcoin is “the currency of the future”. It is clear that the girls are determined to undermine the negative misconceptions associated with Bitcoin and cryptocurrency mining. Whittaker says that “two additional ASIC machines (s17+) will be presented to the people of Panajachel. These machines will feed into the waste treatment plant”.
Even Senator Ted Cruz says that Bitcoin miners do well to capture wasted resources and put them to good use.
For Whittaker, Projects like mining in Panajachel demonstrate how impactful grassroots movements in the Bitcoin community can be:
“Greenpeace and Chris Larsen spend $5 million on ‘change the code’ FUD, while these two girls are self-funding carbon negative bitcoin mining R&D, while also making the decentralized network more stronger and broader.