U.S. Bitcoin Mining Firm Pioneers Alternative Flare Gas Energy

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U.S. Bitcoin Mining Firm Pioneers Alternative Flare Gas Energy

With the spotlight shining strongly on Bitcoin’s energy usage and environmental impact, mining firms are innovating new ways to harness renewable power to produce the next block.

Denver, Colorado-based Crusoe Energy is capturing the energy from flare gas at oil patches and using it to mine Bitcoin.

The firm is now one of North America’s biggest BTC miners and has attracted investment from Coinbase Ventures and the Winklevoss twins, according to a recent report.

Renewable Bitcoin Mining

Crusoe claims that its system can slash the CO2-equivalent emissions from gas flaring by up to 63% and that each one has the equivalent effect of taking around 1,700 cars off the road.

The system works off the oil drilling industry, which often results in the discovery of natural gas in the wells. Drilling companies lack the infrastructure to sell the gas and so burn it off in a process called flaring.

Crusoe installs a piping system to divert the natural gas away from the flares and into generators, which in turn produce electricity that is used to power Bitcoin mining hardware. Crusoe Energy president Cully Cavness stated:

“We pay the operator for the gas that we use in our generators, providing them with an incremental revenue stream where they were previously flaring the gas for zero,”

The firm has deployed the system in North Dakota, Colorado, and Montana, among other states, is now one of the biggest Bitcoin miners in North America.

The search for renewable Bitcoin mining has intensified since Tesla CEO Elon Musk commented on the environmental impact of using fossil fuels to power the process.

The Lone Star State of Texas has also become a mining mecca due to its abundant, low-cost renewable energy, most of which is wind or solar power.

Sichuan Miner Crackdown

The crackdown on Bitcoin mining in China is continuing, with more operations in Sichuan province powering down over the weekend. The move was noted by industry insiders who also commented on the BTC hashrate plunge.

We gonna witness a history in bitcoin mining tonight, all mining farms (about 8m kw electricity load) will shutdown at 12pm Beijing time tonight, Harare rate already dropped significantly after sichuan gov announce shut down bitcoins mining farms in Sichuan. pic.twitter.com/xRfqMCgWY1

— Molly (@bigmagicdao) June 19, 2021

The great mining migration was accelerated last week following a crackdown in Yunnan province, and now Sichuan has followed with orders from the Beijing regime. BTC hashrate has dropped to its lowest level since early November 2020, falling to 91 EH/s according to Bitinfocharts.

Bitcoin price has also taken a hit over the weekend with a fall from $36K to $34K. At the time of press, BTC was trading down 3.4% on the day at $34,530, according to CoinGecko.