ChainCatcher news, UK Judge Keyser KC dismissed the application of Welsh Newport IT engineer James Howells to recover a Bitcoin hard drive worth $735 million buried in the Newport landfill, citing environmental risks. The Newport City Council has consistently refused to enter the landfill where the hard drive was accidentally discarded in 2013. According to the BBC, the judge believed that the case had "no realistic prospect of success" at trial.Howells mined Bitcoin in 2009 when the mining cost was only a few cents and stored it on a hard drive that was later mistakenly discarded.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, IT engineer James Howells from Newport, Wales, has lost a lawsuit to recover a hard drive containing over $770 million worth of Bitcoin.The hard drive mined Bitcoin worth over $770 million in 2009 but was mistakenly discarded in a landfill, and due to environmental permit reasons, Howells is currently prohibited from entering the landfill.According to the BBC on January 9, Keyser stated that the legal case is "impossible" to win in a full trial.

ChainCatcher news, according to Cointelegraph, a British IT engineer James Howells from Newport accidentally discarded a hard drive containing 8,000 bitcoins into a landfill and is suing the Newport City Council for £495 million (approximately $647 million) in damages.It is reported that the man has made several attempts to retrieve the hard drive from the local landfill but has faced resistance from the city council, which has repeatedly denied his requests to excavate the site.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital has launched a pilot mining project in Utah, using methane generated from landfills to power its mining operations. According to a statement, the miner has partnered with renewable energy asset development and operation company Nodal Power to initiate this 280 kilowatt (kW) trial project, and if the test project meets its expected goals, Marathon may expand its methane power generation business.

ChainCatcher news, energy company Nodal Power announced the completion of a $13 million seed round financing, aimed at actively curbing methane emissions from landfills while harnessing its potential energy to power Bitcoin mining data centers.A significant portion of the funding has already been allocated to the construction and operation of two power plants in the United States. The first power plant is located in the southeastern United States and features a data center that efficiently distributes energy between utilities and the data center. The second site is located in the western mountainous region of the United States, housing a groundbreaking off-grid Bitcoin mining data center powered by landfill gas. More funding is currently planned for the development of a third site, which is expected to be operational by early 2024.