Canaan’s Manitoba Pilot Converts Bitcoin Mining Waste Heat Into Greenhouse Power

Bitcoin mining just grew a conscience—and some tomatoes.

Canaan, the ASIC manufacturer turned energy innovator, is flipping the script on crypto's environmental narrative. Their pilot project in Manitoba isn't just crunching numbers on the blockchain; it's using the immense heat from those operations to power local greenhouses. Forget carbon credits—this is direct thermal recycling.

From Exhaust to Agriculture

The setup is brutally simple in its elegance. Mining rigs generate heat as a byproduct. That heat, typically wasted, is now being captured and redirected. In the frigid Canadian climate, it's creating a viable, year-round growing environment. It’s a closed-loop system that turns a persistent criticism of the industry into a tangible asset.

The New Mining Calculus

This moves the conversation beyond mere energy consumption to energy application. The economics of mining have always been a razor-thin margin game—chasing cheap power and efficient hardware. By creating a secondary revenue stream from waste heat, the entire profitability model gets a subtle but powerful tweak. It's an operational hedge that even the most cynical portfolio manager might grudgingly respect—turning a cost center into a potential profit driver, something Wall Street alchemy has failed to do for decades.

The Manitoba pilot is a small-scale proof of concept, but its implications are massive. If scalable, it could redefine mining farms as dual-purpose infrastructure: blockchain validators and localized agricultural hubs. The heat is on, and for once, that's a very good thing.

The 3 megawatt pilot program, announced on January 6, 2026, partners Canaan with Bitforest Investment, a Canadian firm focused on sustainable infrastructure.

The project deploys 360 liquid-cooled Avalon computing servers at Bitforest’s tomato greenhouse facility. According to Canaan, the system captures roughly 90% of the electricity consumed by the servers as heat, producing water temperatures exceeding 75°C. This hot water preheats the intake for the greenhouse’s electric boilers through a closed-loop heat exchange system.

Making Mining Work for Farmers

Traditional greenhouse operations in cold climates face substantial heating costs. Large facilities typically rely on fossil-fuel boilers to maintain optimal growing conditions year-round. In Canada, several regions have adopted carbon pricing policies to encourage lower-emission heating alternatives.

Canaan’s system integrates directly into the greenhouse’s existing heating infrastructure. The heat captured from mining equipment reduces the additional energy needed to reach target temperatures. This approach eliminates the need for industrial cooling towers that conventional liquid-cooled data centers require.

“This program will allow us to measure, model, and scale heat recovery for agriculture in colder climates,” said Nangeng Zhang, Canaan’s chairman and chief executive officer. “Liquid cooling enables us to output high-temperature hot water above 75°C, making compute heat directly usable for greenhouses.”

Source: @miningstockinfo

The 24-month pilot targets 95% uptime for the mining equipment. Canaan estimates the all-in power cost at $0.035 per kilowatt-hour, which includes electricity, operations, troubleshooting, and maintenance. The company states the combined system will circulate up to one million tonnes of hot water annually.

Following Historical Precedent

The concept of using Bitcoin mining heat for agriculture isn’t entirely new. In 2018, Kamil Brejcha, co-founder of Czech cryptocurrency exchange NakamotoX, successfully grew tomatoes in a five-acre greenhouse heated entirely by mining equipment. The project produced what became known as “cryptomatoes,” which were even served as bruschetta at a Bitcoin Amsterdam event.

More recently, companies like Heatbit have shipped dual-purpose devices that mine Bitcoin while heating homes. Several third-party companies have adapted existing mining hardware for space heating applications. However, Canaan’s Manitoba project represents a significant scale-up to industrial agricultural operations.

Bitcoin Mining’s Green Transformation

The broader bitcoin mining industry has undergone substantial changes in its energy profile. According to a Cambridge study released in April 2025, sustainable energy sources now power 52.4% of Bitcoin mining operations. This includes 9.8% nuclear power and 42.6% renewables such as hydropower, wind, and solar.

This marks a dramatic shift from 2022, when only 37.6% of mining used sustainable energy. Natural gas has replaced coal as the single largest energy source at 38.2%, while coal usage plummeted from 36.6% to just 8.9% over the same period.

The study estimates Bitcoin’s annual electricity consumption at 138 terawatt-hours, representing approximately 0.5% of global electricity use. The network’s estimated annual emissions stand at 39.8 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

Institutional Demand Drives Change

Prominent investor Kevin O’Leary has repeatedly emphasized that institutional adoption of Bitcoin depends on mining sustainability. The “Shark Tank” star notes that less than 1% of institutions globally currently hold cryptocurrency as an asset class, largely due to environmental, social, and governance concerns.

“Some institutions prefer, or demand, that the Bitcoin they buy be mined sustainably,” O’Leary explained in an interview with Cryptonews. He predicts significant institutional capital will FLOW into Bitcoin once sustainability standards are consistently met.

Many large corporations maintain ethics and sustainability committees that screen investments before allocation. These committees often filter out assets that don’t meet specific ESG criteria, creating a barrier for Bitcoin adoption regardless of price performance.

Economic Pressures Shape Innovation

The Bitcoin mining industry faces significant economic challenges that make efficiency innovations crucial. The April 2024 halving event cut block rewards from 6.25 to 3.125 Bitcoin, instantly slashing miners’ primary revenue source. Meanwhile, mining difficulty continues reaching record highs as more computing power comes online.

These pressures have driven equipment payback periods to exceed 1,200 days—the longest in Bitcoin’s history. With transaction fees contributing less than 1% of miner revenue, operators must find creative ways to improve profitability and reduce operational costs.

Heat recovery projects like Canaan’s Manitoba facility address both economic and environmental concerns. By providing supplemental heating to agricultural operations, the mining equipment creates additional value beyond Bitcoin production. The greenhouse operator reduces direct heating costs while the mining operation potentially qualifies for carbon credits or other incentives.

Some mining companies have pivoted toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing services to diversify revenue streams. AI data centers can generate approximately $25 per kilowatt-hour compared to Bitcoin’s $1 per kilowatt-hour, making such conversions financially attractive despite high infrastructure costs.

Real-World Testing and Scalability

Beyond energy reuse, Canaan plans to evaluate key performance indicators under actual operating conditions. The project will measure heat recovery efficiency, system stability, and operating and maintenance requirements. This data will help determine whether the model can be replicated across Canada’s agricultural sector and similar cold-climate regions.

Bitforest’s focus on year-round tomato cultivation makes consistent heat supply critical, especially during harsh Manitoba winters. The project will test whether high-density computing infrastructure can practically serve as a supplemental heat source rather than simply venting excess energy into the atmosphere.

Canaan, founded in 2013, shipped the world’s first ASIC Bitcoin mining machines and is recognized as the world’s second-largest Bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer. The company completed its initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Market in 2019 and continues expanding its energy efficiency initiatives.

The Sustainable Mining Path Forward

Canaan’s Manitoba greenhouse project demonstrates how Bitcoin mining can integrate with traditional industries to create mutually beneficial outcomes. The 24-month pilot will provide crucial data on whether industrial-scale heat recovery represents a viable path for making cryptocurrency mining more sustainable and economically resilient.

As institutional investors increasingly demand sustainable mining practices and economic pressures force innovation, projects that capture and reuse mining heat may become standard rather than experimental. The success or failure of this initiative could influence how the industry addresses both profitability challenges and environmental concerns in the years ahead.