Abu Dhabi agricultural regulator bans use of farmland for crypto mining

The Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA), the agricultural regulator for the emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), announced a ban on using agricultural land for crypto mining.

Violators will face a 100,000 AED fine ($27,229), and the ADAFSA will suspend municipal services, confiscate mining hardware, and disconnect the farmland from the electrical grid, according to Tuesday’s announcement.

ADAFSA said that using farmland for crypto mining conflicts with “sustainability” policies in the region and undermines existing land use provisions.

“Such activities fall outside the scope of permitted economic uses defined by the authority and are not allowed on farmlands,” it said.

Crypto mining requires significant energy input, contributing to a spike in energy generation in the US and inviting scrutiny from regulators worldwide. Source: US Energy Information AdministrationCrypto mining and its environmental impact continue to be debated, with critics arguing that mining has negative effects on ecology, while advocates point to vertically integrated mining operations as a way to recycle runoff energy and siphon waste into utilities.

Related: Bitcoin mining difficulty paints new ATH amid centralization fears

Some research suggests crypto mining can aid environmental efforts

Crypto mining is a highly competitive business with narrow profit margins, which encourages miners to seek out the cheapest energy sources to reduce variable expenses.

Renewable forms of energy like hydroelectric power, geothermal power, or runoff energy from industrial processes such as flaring excess energy from gas fields or siphoning methane energy from waste contribute over 50% of the energy used to mine Bitcoin (BTC) in 2023.

In August 2024, researchers published a paper titled “An integrated landfill gas-to-energy and Bitcoin mining framework,” outlining how proof-of-work (PoW) mining can convert methane energy to usable energy.

The researchers examined landfill-gas-to-energy (LFGTE) systems, which siphon methane gases from garbage in landfills to electricity, thereby sequestering the harmful greenhouse gas and keeping it out of the atmosphere.

An illustration showing the flow of runoff methane gas to usable energy. Source: ScienceDirectThese findings echo earlier research papers, including “Bitcoin and the Energy Transition: From Risk to Opportunity,” published in 2023, which argued that mining could reduce up to 8% of global emissions by 2030.

Despite this, critics continue to argue that mining poses risks to ecology. US lawmakers have made several attempts to get the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to pass regulations to restrict mining activity.

Such regulations include provisions to reduce pollution to the air, water, and greenhouse gas emissions under existing US regulations, alongside newer regulations targeting noise pollution from mining facilities

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