JAKARTA – American multinational company Exxon Mobil is reportedly using excess natural gas to run Bitcoin (BTC) mining rigs. This is just a pilot program but has the potential to be expanded to include other countries.
Bloomberg reports that Exxon Mobil has signed a deal with Crusoe Energy to use excess gas from an oil well located in North Dakota to run BTC mining. The project reportedly uses 18 million cubic feet of natural gas per month, about 0.4 percent of the oil giant's reported operations in the state, producing 158 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.
According to Cointelegraph, the company launched a pilot program in January 2021 and is now reportedly considering expanding to Nigeria, Argentina, Guyana, and Germany in addition to launching a similar project in Alaska.
Previously, the company ConocoPhillips had run a similar program by selling excess gas to Bitcoin miners to be used as fuel to operate mining machines.
The reason is that natural gas delivery uses a pipeline network and this cannot always accommodate the amount produced safely. Gas companies are forced to burn excess gas or throw it into the air which is damaging to the environment.
“This creates the benefits of what would otherwise be wasted,” said Danielle Fugere, president of the environmental shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, referring to the energy being diverted to Bitcoin miners.
According to a report from Argus Media, Crusoe Energy operated 60 data centers for crypto mining in four US states as of September 2021 that were powered by “gas from oil wells that were supposed to be burned on site.” Instead of burning gas, the company turned it into crypto mining. It reportedly succeeded in reducing carbon dioxide equivalent emissions “by 63 percent.”
Nevertheless, North Dakota is a major source of natural gas for the United States. Texas hosts a variety of oil and gas companies as well as crypto miners who utilize the vast natural gas energy of the location. This is in contrast to the New York parliament's decision to propose to stop crypto mining activities with a Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm like the one used by Bitcoin.
Because crypto mining using PoW requires high computing devices and this consumes more energy and is claimed to cause environmental problems.
On the other hand, Kazakhstan's “crypto miner's paradise” is reportedly experiencing an energy crisis as a result of illegal crypto miners entering the country. Even a number of crypto mining companies also "voluntarily" closed mining activities and chose to leave there.
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