Amid Europe’s energy crisis, this Dutch tulip grower is trading gas for heat from Bitcoin mining

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Faced with soaring energy prices, farmers are facing a difficult time.

The situation is no better for greenhouse growers in the Netherlands, the world’s largest tulip producer and second agricultural exporter after the United States.

Huge energy costs have caused some Dutch agricultural companies that often rely on greenhouses to stop growing tulips this year, while others have even gone bankrupt.

“Some growers have decided, due to the increase in gasoline prices, to stop growing this year and see what happens next year. And in some cases this leads to bankruptcy,” said flower grower Danielle Koning.

To avoid bankruptcy and increased overhead, Koning partnered with a Bitcoin mining company to heat its giant greenhouse near Amsterdam with mining servers.

Cryptocurrency mining generates a large amount of heat while requiring huge amounts of electricity to power computing rigs.

“So bitcoin miners, they produce a lot of heat. You have a delta [difference] about 20 degrees Celsius between the temperature entering the miner and that leaving it, explained Bert de Groot, owner of Bitcoin Brabant. And that’s because the processors in this computer are constantly trying to guess a random number and it’s generating heat.”

‘The win-win situation’

This is where Koning sees the business as being a “win-win situation”.

The heat generated by the platforms is now used to heat the greenhouse where rows of tulips grow, reducing farmers’ dependence on gas.

The servers are in turn powered by solar power from the roof, reducing the normally huge electricity costs for mining and reducing its potential impact on the environment.

The flower grower and the mining company have shared ownership of the servers and the Bitcoin they produce.

There are six servers operating in the greenhouse, the exact location of which Koning asked to be kept secret to prevent thieves from targeting the 15,000 machines.

The mining company visits the farm every month to maintain the rigs, clean the dust and bugs from the server fans.

‘Carbon negative’ operation

By reducing dependence on natural gas and using renewable electricity, the installation of the greenhouse helps the environment, according to de Groot.

“This operation is actually carbon negative, as are all the operations I build,” he says.

“We are actually improving the environment.”

He also sells Tulips online for Bitcoin through a company called Bitcoin Bloem.

For more on this story, watch the video in the media player above.

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