I will try to get into all issues you have addressed so far.
- Depending on the weather I have between 0 and 10 Megawatt available. Far more than I need at the moment.
- I can vent the room as much as I would like. I have different rooms available, one of them being a basement with a year round temperature of about 6-10 °C
- Every amount of noise is acceptable.
- Initially I can invest about 5-15 thousand US$ (less is better of course)
- The limit of kWh I have is much higher than what I need given my initial investment maximum
- I am not aiming to earn any specific amount.
- I will be working full time on this project in the context of my master thesis beginning in the spring of 2020
My current thoughts are definitely going for second hand hardware. Either some older ASICS for mining Bitcoins or some used Graphics Cards for mining Ethereum.
I want to start small and but with the ability to scale up my setup easily in case of profitability.