Exxon Plans Using Excess Natural Gas to Mine Bitcoin
The oil and gas giant has been leveraging Bitcoin mining to reduce its flare gas emissions.
Exxon Mobil – a major multinational oil and gas corporation – is considering leveraging Bitcoin mining to make an even greater profit from excess oil production. The company may take its gas-to-Bitcoin pilot to multiple countries, after already using 18 million cubic feet of gas per month for this purpose.
Exxon is currently burning excess natural gas from North Dakota oil wells that would otherwise be burned off or flared, due to a pipeline shortage. The company takes gas from an oil pad in Bakken shale basin to power on-site Bitcoin miners as part of an agreement with Crusoe Energy Systems.
That’s the great thing about bitcoin mining – critics often says it’s bad for the environment, but the way I see it, the economics of bitcoin mining encourages people to use the cheapest sources of energy. And often times, the cheapest source of energy is energy that would have been wasted anyway. If the gas would have been wasted, you might as well mine BTC. Also true for geothermal energy btw.
Geothermic is the way. Has anyone watched “Down to earth” Zac Efron on Netflix? One episode was on how Iceland are utilising it in a massive way, including BTC mining. They are one of the top producers in the world, impressive for a country with a population less than 400k.