The Abu Dhabi Agricultural and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA), the Abu Dhabi Emirates’ agricultural regulator in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has announced a ban on the use of farmland for crypto mining.
Violators face 100,000 AED fines ($27,229) ($27,229), according to a release Tuesday, and Adafsa will suspend municipal services, confiscate hardware and cut farmland from the electrical grid.
Adafsa said using farmland for crypto mining would contradict the region’s “sustainability” policy and undermine existing land use regulations.
“Such activities are outside the scope of permitted economic use defined by the authorities and are not permitted on farmland.”
Crypto mining and its environmental impact continues to be debated, with critics claiming that mining has a negative impact on ecology, and supporters point to vertically integrated mining operations as a way to recycle effluent energy and sucking waste into utilities.
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Several studies suggest that crypto mining can support environmental efforts
Crypto Mining is a very competitive business with narrow profit margins and encourages miners to look for the cheapest energy sources to reduce variable costs.
Renewable forms of renewable forms such as hydroelectric power, geothermal power, or effluent energy from industrial processes such as excess energy from waste, 50% or more of the energy used to mine Bitcoin (BTC) in 2023, or methane energy sucked up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkvojawp688
In August 2024, researchers published a paper entitled “Integrated Landfill Gas Energy and Bitcoin Mining Framework,” outlining how Proof of Work (POW) mining can convert methane energy into usable energy.
Researchers investigated a Landfill (LFGTE) system that sucks methane gas from landfills into electricity from landfill waste, thereby isolating harmful greenhouse gases and protecting them from the atmosphere.
These findings reflect previous research papers, including Bitcoin and Energy Transition: From Risk to Opportunity, published in 2023, claiming that mining could reduce global emissions by 2030 by up to 8%.
Nevertheless, critics continue to argue that mining poses risks to ecology. US lawmakers have made several attempts to pass regulations to limit mining activities to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
These regulations include new regulations targeting noise pollution from mining facilities, as well as provisions to reduce air, water and greenhouse gas emissions under existing US regulations.
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