IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v203y2020ics0360544220309506.html

Economic viability of bitcoin mining using a renewable-based SOFC power system to supply the electrical power demand

Author

Listed:
  • Malfuzi, A.
  • Mehr, A.S.
  • Rosen, Marc A.
  • Alharthi, M.
  • Kurilova, A.A.

Abstract

One of Bitcoin’s most significant problems is its seemingly insatiable use of electricity. In the present research, along with providing the required power for Bitcoin (BTC) mining, a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system fed either by natural gas or biogas as a renewable source of energy is used to supply the electricity demand. Thermodynamic modeling for the fuel cell system is applied to determine the required biogas or natural gas. For the proposed cases (grid-based, natural gas-fed SOFC and biogas fed SOFC), various scenarios depending on the Bitcoin price and mining difficulty are proposed. Also, the economic viability for each scenario in several countries is investigated and compared. Results indicate more profitability for grid-based mining in Bitcoin prices up to $20,000, but as the Bitcoin price increases SOFC based mining operations achieve reasonable profitability. It is shown that Iran, Russia, and China with cumulative cash flows of $87,300, $77,200 and $70,500 respectively, are the best countries to mine BTC using grid electricity while Iran, Canada and Russia are the best countries using a natural gas-fed SOFC system. While the profitability of SOFC-based mining is lower than grid-based mining, the latter method compensates with better sustainability and lower environmental costs.

Suggested Citation

  • Malfuzi, A. & Mehr, A.S. & Rosen, Marc A. & Alharthi, M. & Kurilova, A.A., 2020. "Economic viability of bitcoin mining using a renewable-based SOFC power system to supply the electrical power demand," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:203:y:2020:i:c:s0360544220309506
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.117843
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220309506
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2020.117843?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Luisanna Cocco & Michele Marchesi, 2016. "Modeling and Simulation of the Economics of Mining in the Bitcoin Market," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(10), pages 1-31, October.
    2. Sadeghi, M. & Mehr, A.S. & Zar, M. & Santarelli, M., 2018. "Multi-objective optimization of a novel syngas fed SOFC power plant using a downdraft gasifier," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 16-31.
    3. Luisanna Cocco & Michele Marchesi, 2016. "Modeling and Simulation of the Economics of Mining in the Bitcoin Market," Papers 1605.01354, arXiv.org.
    4. Delgado-Mohatar, Oscar & Felis-Rota, Marta & Fernández-Herraiz, Carlos, 2019. "The Bitcoin mining breakdown: Is mining still profitable?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    5. Yari, Mortaza & Mehr, Ali Saberi & Mahmoudi, Seyed Mohammad Seyed & Santarelli, Massimo, 2016. "A comparative study of two SOFC based cogeneration systems fed by municipal solid waste by means of either the gasifier or digester," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 586-602.
    6. Mehr, A.S. & Gandiglio, M. & MosayebNezhad, M. & Lanzini, A. & Mahmoudi, S.M.S. & Yari, M. & Santarelli, M., 2017. "Solar-assisted integrated biogas solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) installation in wastewater treatment plant: Energy and economic analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 620-638.
    7. Li, Jingming & Li, Nianping & Peng, Jinqing & Cui, Haijiao & Wu, Zhibin, 2019. "Energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining: A study of electricity consumption in mining cryptocurrencies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 160-168.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anatolyy Dzyuba & Irina Solovyeva & Dmitry Konopelko, 2023. "Managing Electricity Costs in Industrial Mining and Cryptocurrency Data Centers," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 13(4), pages 76-90, July.
    2. Sergio Luis Náñez Alonso & Javier Jorge-Vázquez & Miguel Ángel Echarte Fernández & Ricardo Francisco Reier Forradellas, 2021. "Cryptocurrency Mining from an Economic and Environmental Perspective. Analysis of the Most and Least Sustainable Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-22, July.
    3. Roudari, Soheil & Omidi, Vahid & Ahmadian-Yazdi, Fazaneh, 2024. "The Dynamics of Fossil Fuels, Cryptocurrencies, and Clean Energy: Dose the Energy market's price volatility create an incentive for cryptocurrency mining?," MPRA Paper 126833, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Juan Ignacio Ibañez & Alexander Freier, 2023. "Bitcoin’s Carbon Footprint Revisited: Proof of Work Mining for Renewable Energy Expansion," Challenges, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-21, August.
    5. Jana, Rabin K. & Ghosh, Indranil & Wallin, Martin W., 2022. "Taming energy and electronic waste generation in bitcoin mining: Insights from Facebook prophet and deep neural network," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    6. Arefdehghani, Sajjad & Rostamzadeh Khosroshahi, Alireza & Kousheshi, Navid & Saberi Mehr, Ali & Nami, Hossein, 2024. "Techno-economic assessment of decentralized low-carbon power plants based on solid oxide fuel cell equipped with calcium looping carbon capture," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    7. Moritz Wendl & My Hanh Doan & Remmer Sassen, 2026. "The Impact of Environmental Information on Cryptocurrency Investment Allocation Decisions: An Experimental Survey Study," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 33(1), pages 217-235, January.
    8. Lashkaripour, Mohammadhossein & Hosseini, Seyedmehdi & Basirian, Elnaz & Bouri, Elie, 2025. "The path to sustainable Bitcoin mining: Challenges and barriers," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C).
    9. Zięba, Damian, 2024. "If GPU(time) == money: Sustainable crypto-asset market? Analysis of similarity among crypto-asset financial time series," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 89(PB), pages 863-912.
    10. Mushtaq Hussain Khan & Shreya Macherla & Angesh Anupam, 2025. "Nonlinear connectedness of conventional crypto-assets and sustainable crypto-assets with climate change: A complex systems modelling approach," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 20(2), pages 1-18, February.
    11. Xu, Yuhao & Luo, Xiaobing & Tu, Zhengkai & Siew Hwa Chan,, 2022. "Multi-criteria assessment of solid oxide fuel cell–combined cooling, heating, and power system model for residential application," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    12. Małgorzata Jabłczyńska & Krzysztof Kosc & Przemysław Ryś & Paweł Sakowski & Robert Ślepaczuk & Grzegorz Zakrzewski, 2023. "Energy and cost efficiency of Bitcoin mining endeavor," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(3), pages 1-45, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mehr, A.S. & MosayebNezhad, M. & Lanzini, A. & Yari, M. & Mahmoudi, S.M.S. & Santarelli, M., 2018. "Thermodynamic assessment of a novel SOFC based CCHP system in a wastewater treatment plant," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 299-309.
    2. Sadeghi, Mohsen & Seyed Mahmoudi, Seyed Mohammad & Rosen, Marc A., 2022. "Thermoeconomic analysis of two solid oxide fuel cell based cogeneration plants integrated with simple or modified supercritical CO2 Brayton cycles: A comparative study," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    3. Hu, Yang & Lang, Chunlin & Oxley, Les & Hou, Yang (Greg), 2026. "Time-varying Granger causality in Bitcoin mining: Uncovering shifting links to environment, sustainability, and profitability," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    4. Sharif, Arshian & Brahim, Mariem & Dogan, Eyup & Tzeremes, Panayiotis, 2023. "Analysis of the spillover effects between green economy, clean and dirty cryptocurrencies," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    5. Francisco Javier García-Corral & José Antonio Cordero-García & Jaime de Pablo-Valenciano & Juan Uribe-Toril, 2022. "A bibliometric review of cryptocurrencies: how have they grown?," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-31, December.
    6. Tudor-Gabriel BUDISTEANU, 2025. "Blockchain And Cryptocurrencies In The Metaverse: Risks, Opportunities, And The Future Of Digital Economic Governance," Proceedings of the INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT CONFERENCE, Faculty of Management, Academy of Economic Studies, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 19(1), pages 481-488, October.
    7. Aixing Li & Ke Gong & Jiashun Li & Li Zhang & Xueting Luo, 2025. "Is Monopolization Inevitable in Proof-of-Work Blockchains? Insights from Miner Scale Analysis," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 66(3), pages 1825-1850, September.
    8. José Parra-Moyano & Gregor Reich & Karl Schmedders, 2024. "A Note on the Non-proportionality of Winning Probabilities in Bitcoin," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 64(3), pages 1697-1714, September.
    9. Shayan, E. & Zare, V. & Mirzaee, I., 2019. "On the use of different gasification agents in a biomass fueled SOFC by integrated gasifier: A comparative exergo-economic evaluation and optimization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 1126-1138.
    10. Pavel Ciaian & d'Artis Kancs & Miroslava Rajcaniova, 2021. "Interdependencies between Mining Costs, Mining Rewards and Blockchain Security," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 22(1), pages 25-62, May.
    11. Mehr, A.S. & Moharramian, A. & Hossainpour, S. & Pavlov, Denis A., 2020. "Effect of blending hydrogen to biogas fuel driven from anaerobic digestion of wastewater on the performance of a solid oxide fuel cell system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 202(C).
    12. Mehr, A.S. & Lanzini, A. & Santarelli, M. & Rosen, Marc A., 2021. "Polygeneration systems based on high temperature fuel cell (MCFC and SOFC) technology: System design, fuel types, modeling and analysis approaches," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 228(C).
    13. Delgado-Mohatar, Oscar & Felis-Rota, Marta & Fernández-Herraiz, Carlos, 2019. "The Bitcoin mining breakdown: Is mining still profitable?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    14. Alaminos, David & Salas-Compás, M. Belén & Fernández-Gámez, Manuel Á., 2024. "Can Bitcoin trigger speculative pressures on the US Dollar? A novel ARIMA-EGARCH-Wavelet Neural Networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 654(C).
    15. Peter Fratrič & Giovanni Sileno & Sander Klous & Tom Engers, 2022. "Manipulation of the Bitcoin market: an agent-based study," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-29, December.
    16. Hector F. Calvo-Pardo & Tullio Mancini & Jose Olmo, 2022. "Machine Learning the Carbon Footprint of Bitcoin Mining," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-30, February.
    17. Fan Fang & Carmine Ventre & Michail Basios & Leslie Kanthan & David Martinez-Rego & Fan Wu & Lingbo Li, 2022. "Cryptocurrency trading: a comprehensive survey," Financial Innovation, Springer;Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, vol. 8(1), pages 1-59, December.
    18. Rico-Peña, Juan Jesús & Arguedas-Sanz, Raquel & López-Martin, Carmen, 2023. "Models used to characterise blockchain features. A systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    19. Marten Risius & Kai Spohrer, 2017. "A Blockchain Research Framework," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 59(6), pages 385-409, December.
    20. Abedinia, Oveis & Shakibi, Hamid & Shokri, Afshar & Sobhani, Behnam & Sobhani, Behrouz & Yari, Mortaza & Bagheri, Mehdi, 2024. "Optimization of a syngas-fueled SOFC-based multigeneration system: Enhanced performance with biomass and gasification agent selection," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:203:y:2020:i:c:s0360544220309506. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.