Mining cryptos by harvesting body heat

[kenzawak]

You Could Mine 1 Bitcoin Per Month If You Harvested the Body Heat from 44,000 People

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vby7ny/bitcoin-body-heat-mining?utm_source=mbfb

"A Dutch organization called the Institute of Human Obsolescence (IoHO) recently took the fantasy of sustainable cryptocurrencies to its extreme by harvesting human body heat to mine a variety of cryptocurrencies.
...
The IoHO’s idea was to capture some of this excess body heat using wearable arrays of thermoelectric generators. These generators would then convert the body heat to electric energy, which was used to power the computers mining cryptocurrency.
...
Since 2015, 37 volunteers contributed 212 hours of mining time to generate a total of 127.2 watts of power. Although the volunteers contributed their bodies to the project for different amounts of time, on average the volunteers each contributed about 0.6 watts/hour of energy. Given that the average adult human produces about 80 watts as excess heat, this means that the IoHO was able to effectively harvest less than 1 percent of the body heat generated by its volunteers.
...
Due to the small amount of energy that the IoHO was able to harvest from the volunteers, the organization mostly dedicated this energy to mining new cryptocurrencies such as Vertcoin and Startcoin since it required less energy to mine a relatively large number of these coins.
...
Since each human is generating 0.6 watthours of energy with the IoHO, it would take nearly 4,600 people lying still, 24/7 for a year using the IoHO device to produce 1.2 bitcoins. At current Bitcoin prices, each person would receive about $3 for their year-long endeavor.
...
If you wanted to speed things up and mine 1 bitcoin per month, you’re going to need about 320 people lying still around the clock with a perfectly efficient system. To do 1 bitcoin per month with IoHO’s tech—which in terms of efficiency is on par with most affordable wearable thermoelectric generators available today—you’d need around 44,000 people providing their body energy 24/7."

[eternalgloom]

It's an interesting proof of concept, but I really don't see this sort of technology coming on the market any time soon.
I mean, have you seen the video in that article? The technology isn't exactly fit for day to day use yet.

Again, interesting article, just not really practical.

[davis196]

They got that consept after watching the movie "The Matrix"(1999).The machines were using human heat to produce eletricity and maintain the matrix.
In the future,clothes that capture our body heat and produce small amounts of electricity could be invesnted for sure.It won't be enough to mine crypto,but you could charge your smartphone.

[NeuroticFish]

(IoHO) recently took the fantasy of sustainable cryptocurrencies to its extreme by harvesting human body heat to mine a variety of cryptocurrencies.

It's clearly better to use "on site" the energy produced and crypto is an interesting direction, but:
1. The tech is still not good enough. Capturing only 1% of the energy is .. well.. not great.
2. Because of [1], the devices to harvest the energy and use it are expensive, so the "price" of those crypto coins is much higher than the market price, so although the energy source was free, the mining was too expensive.

So the idea is interesting, but until those percents get much higher, it's unfortunately useless.

[saraschoudhary]

You Could Mine 1 Bitcoin Per Month If You Harvested the Body Heat from 44,000 People

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vby7ny/bitcoin-body-heat-mining?utm_source=mbfb

The project is totally unviable in terms of cost and efficiency.

Firstly, employing 44,000 people for one month would use up a total of 9,152,000 man hours (assuming 8 hours per day and 26 days in a month) which would yield a return of just 1 BTC. Totally not worth the economic benefit.

Secondly, using the present available technology we cannot even harness 1% of the body heat and capture it to run our machines. So the efficiency would be very low.

A personal opinion, I don't understand the need for such research until it leads to some betterment in technology about capturing and transferring heat from nature. I mean there are better projects out there in dire need of funds to fuel their research.

[jrrsparkles]

You Could Mine 1 Bitcoin Per Month If You Harvested the Body Heat from 44,000 People

Maybe it is possible but we need more electricity needed to harvest that energy from 44,000 people to mine that bitcoin,so its better to mine with the produced electricity from natural resources like wind or solar power or from nuclear reactor than developing the silly ideas like producing from human body.

[kenzawak]

You Could Mine 1 Bitcoin Per Month If You Harvested the Body Heat from 44,000 People

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/vby7ny/bitcoin-body-heat-mining?utm_source=mbfb

The project is totally unviable in terms of cost and efficiency.

Firstly, employing 44,000 people for one month would use up a total of 9,152,000 man hours (assuming 8 hours per day and 26 days in a month) which would yield a return of just 1 BTC. Totally not worth the economic benefit.

This is exactly what the article is saying actually. That's why they chose to mine other cryptocurrencies like Vertcoin and Startcoin instead. Mining Bitcoin this way isn't viable, at least for now.

[beerlover]

Calm down there Matrix, we still have a lot of ways to generate electricity until we come there . I mean with the technology we have right now on how to generate electricity from both sun and water even wind we don't need to consider these type of things . However, it is a marvelous thing to consider how one researcher probably said "I wonder how much electricity we could generate from the body heat of humans" and actually did a research on the subject trying to figure out how much would it be required to achieve such a power.

I mean I love scientists because they are the reason why we are all improving our lives constantly with each passing year but sometimes I really feel like some scientists are just using the knowledge they have into some funny stuff just for the giggles .

[coolcoinz]

The most important part is that they were only able to harvest a fraction of the heat generated by human body. They theoretically could be getting 100W per person, but were getting much less due to inefficiency of the system. To be able to get everything they would have to embed the probes into clothes and make sure they cover at least 80% of the body, which means tight suits.



The most efficient would be an insulated tank filled with water that would cover 100% of the body surface. The person would be completely submerged and breathing through a tube. There are areas in human body that get warmer than the rest, like the head, and not adding any generators there was a mistake that impacted their results.

It's of course a great idea. Not for mining, but for charging your phone, or being able to power up small devices like electronic locks, thermometers, heart rate sensors.

[tenakha]

...
Since each human is generating 0.6 watthours of energy with the IoHO, it would take nearly 4,600 people lying still, 24/7 for a year using the IoHO device to produce 1.2 bitcoins. At current Bitcoin prices, each person would receive about $3 for their year-long endeavor.
...
If you wanted to speed things up and mine 1 bitcoin per month, you’re going to need about 320 people lying still around the clock with a perfectly efficient system. To do 1 bitcoin per month with IoHO’s tech—which in terms of efficiency is on par with most affordable wearable thermoelectric generators available today—you’d need around 44,000 people providing their body energy 24/7."

I have read about it yesterday so it is just for attracting attention and IMO unnecessary. Because it is unreasonable to use mankind who have all kind of skills. It is like the abuse of the human body for bitcoin mining.

[o_e_l_e_o]

It doesn't matter how efficient the technology gets - the human body does not break the first law of thermodynamics. All heat produced by the human body is a by product of it metabolizing food for life-sustaining processes. We are spending energy to grow food, expending energy to package, ship and prepare the good, expending energy to break it down to usable energy inside the body, using that energy to drive physiological processes, and creating the byproduct of heat. Even if we can harvest 100% of that heat, if you are doing so purely for profit then it is completely non-viable compared to missing out all those hugely inefficient and wasteful middle steps.

[mu_enrico]

Yeah, the law of thermodynamics applied here, and body heat is just minuscule energy compared to energy for a walk or moving objects. Why stop here? I read a more compelling article about the usage of human foot power to light up cities. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/11/floor-tile-generates-power-from-footsteps-energy-electricity-startup

Imagine human foot power to mine bitcoin! Lol

[danherbias07]

Maybe they could rub their hands to produce more heat. So I could mine more bitcoin than just 1.

It is interesting though that they are looking for better ways on how to produce natural energy.
Oil will be depleted and not everyday the sun will come out for solar energy.

But this one is a difficult thing. Could you really hire 320 people to just lay down and do nothing? If you are to ask me, I dont like that kind of job.

[NavI_027]

You Could Mine 1 Bitcoin Per Month If You Harvested the Body Heat from 44,000 People

Then where and how you collect that huge number of volunteers?

Anyway, thermoelectric modules or also known as TEM can definitely be used to generate electricity but with not so huge output (that's why it requires 44,000 people based on their calculation). Another factor to be considered is the Seebeck Effect, it is the opposite of Peltier Effect. It states that when a higher temperature is subjected on one of two sides of conductors, the heat will be transferred on the cooler side and results to electrical current. So in order to have a more efficient set up, your concern should not only focus on applying hot temp. but also on how will you eliminate it on the other side (might use a heat sink to do so). Acquiring the maximum heat (thermal difference) is the key not the high temp. alone.

The bottomline, it still not advisable to use TEMs on applications which requires high amount of energy since it can only be practically used for smaller ones like charging smartphones and the alike. Much more convenient if you will use other sources of renewable energy such as solar, hydro and wind for crypto mining.

[STT]

It doesnt have to collect the body heat directly from the people, just the buildings their in surely would be close enough especially when people are already paying to heat a building then it might as well utilise the heat as part of the air circulation for the building.

The Dutch especially are very pro awareness on global warming I think because of water levels having a direct effect on their country, the lowest residing nation in Europe I believe it is.   Higher sea levels from melting ice caps is bad thing for many nations but especially them in the west over others I think

[Kemarit]

It's a very interesting concept but I'm not really sure if this really suits the need just to mine 1 BTC. I mean the article says that you need to lie down 24/7 for about a year. I guess its doable but it is efficient? I doubt that. The manpower needed and then wearable arrays of thermoelectric cost would just offset what they're going to generate in about a year.

[naidray]

It's an interesting proof of concept, but I really don't see this sort of technology coming on the market any time soon.
I mean, have you seen the video in that article? The technology isn't exactly fit for day to day use yet.

Again, interesting article, just not really practical.

Yes, definitely not practical as this process needs 44k people which is multiple times bigger than my  residing society.

After leaving the number of required people, I just imagine at what level it will be feasible. Anything like wearable bands in hands which will be doing the actual mining by consuming the body heat and based on pulse rates then it will be possible to be implemented in real life.

Still hiring that many people and convincing them by paying some shares to them will be a very big task. If we pay them from the 1 bitcoins which is to be mined from their body heat, I'm not sure how much profit will be left out. Honestly, interesting things are not practically working as we are expecting. That must be the catch from God for balancing everything in this world.

[PlusOne88]

This a very interesting idea. Though it was not mentioned how much time it needs, I still think it would not take a little less than a minute to do the body heat transfer to privide the needed power.  Well I also thought about using the heat generated by the computer while it is mining. I think this could give the same power similar to the body heat. Or else maybe solar power will do.

[STT]

wearable arrays of thermoelectric generators

Thats not a feasible improvement over just extracting heat from a room imo.   If people ran alot hotter maybe but really kinetic energy is a far better source, used to power watches for a few decades

Solar panels have come down in price massively and is likely far more efficient then this scheme in that way.   But also that would require some investment in solar panels where as this scheme clearly should be incidental and really not involving personal to take part or even be aware in the heat capture.

A room temperature will rise with people in it same as cattle in a shed can raise the whole rooms temperature.   No special equipment is really required for this part.   People have been living above cattle for years without thinking of it as technology, its just part of smart energy usage.

Modern civilisation has forgotten some of its tricks used before we had oil so easily available.  Now with global warming we are trying to get back to smart use more then just our glutton instincts, Remember at one point we were using whale oil for power and it was thought oil energy would not be mainstream I think

Still hiring that many people and convincing them by paying some shares to them will be a very big task. If we pay them from the 1 bitcoins which is to be mined from their body heat, I'm not sure how much profit will be left out.

The people arent involved, the profit comes from raised efficiency which is required by all business.   This would be like the Sydney Opera house which does the opposite and extracts heat into pipes sitting in the ocean bay nearby, this avoid active aircon usage and lowers their power bills alot

[darkangel11]

wearable arrays of thermoelectric generators

Thats not a feasible improvement over just extracting heat from a room imo. 

Not really, because when you're heating the room you are heating its whole structure. This means a lot of it will be bled to the outside. Direct heat transfer is always more efficient than indirect options like doing it through air which would be inside that room.
There's a reason why heat sinks are mounted on thermal compounds so that there's no air between them and the hot surface. You can use other things if you run out of your compound, one of them is ould, but oil, as a temporary solution. Putting people in water or oil baths would greatly increase efficiency.