The American oil energy giant is reportedly in the process of allocating its excess natural gas (which is simply sent into the atmosphere) to Bitcoin mining.
Preserving the environment, oil companies and Bitcoin
The American oil tanker ExxonMobil has reportedly tested (and is still in the process of) a pilot project for the use of flare gas (gas found mixed in oil in its crude state) for the production of Bitcoins. This flaring of natural gas represents the destruction of a non-renewable energy resource without economic compensation.
Since January 2021, according to sources connected with the project, ExxonMobil works with Crusoe Energy Systems for the implementation of the pilot project at their North Dakota site. Crusoe Energy Systems devotes its expertise to helping oil companies transform wasted energy such as flare gas into a useful energy source.
With this approach, two problems are solved:
- A supply of energy for Bitcoin mining farms at very low pricess, which would also be directly connected to the energy source, as the farms would be installed on site. This would capture 100% of the emissions sent into the atmosphere.
- Unconsistent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. To give you an idea, according to the International Energy Alliance, Co2 emissions from natural gas flaring in 2018 were around 275 megatons of Co2, equivalent to Egypt’s Co2 emissions in one year.
Exxon is reportedly planning further pilots at its sites in Alaska, Nigeria, Argentina and Germany to further reduce its carbon footprint.
An innovative business model
Crusoe proposes a new business model to address the problem of atmospheric pollution. Their proposal is to deploy Digital Flare Mitigation systems, which are data centers mobile and deployable in a matter of weeks or even days.
These modules have the huge advantage of being able to be installed on site with few integrations for customers, which gives a competitive advantage, as there is no need for much expense in actually setting up mining farms or any other customer-defined usage.
According to Crusoe and the use case ofExxonMobil, this solution can be implemented at two types of industrial sites:
- Oil extraction sites that lack the infrastructure to send natural gas found in pipelines to avoid energy waste and pollution.
- Oil refineries which have excess gas in their plants and burn it off.
Innovative efforts such as the one described in this article could help change the face of Bitcoin, and at the same time make a contribution to fighting climate change.
