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{"id":5089,"date":"2022-05-04T15:30:33","date_gmt":"2022-05-04T15:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/05\/04\/why-fossil-fuel-companies-see-green-in-bitcoin-mining-projects\/"},"modified":"2022-05-04T15:30:34","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T15:30:34","slug":"why-fossil-fuel-companies-see-green-in-bitcoin-mining-projects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceandnerds.com\/2022\/05\/04\/why-fossil-fuel-companies-see-green-in-bitcoin-mining-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"Why fossil fuel companies see green in Bitcoin mining projects"},"content":{"rendered":"

Source: https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2022\/5\/4\/23055761\/exxonmobil-cryptomining-bitcoin-methane-gas<\/a>
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Of all the corporate climate hype<\/a> floating around this spring, ExxonMobil\u2019s secret project to cut down its pollution by mining Bitcoin has to rank up there as one of the strangest. <\/p>\n

Exxon launched a pilot project in 2021 to mine Bitcoin in North Dakota\u2019s Bakken oil fields, according to reporting by CNBC in March<\/a>. The US\u2019s biggest oil and gas company is also thinking about doing the same in Alaska and parts of Nigeria, Argentina, Guyana, and Germany, Bloomberg<\/em> reported<\/a>. And it\u2019s not alone. Other oil companies, including ConocoPhillips<\/a> in North Dakota, see the energy-hungry cryptocurrency as a way to offload some of their climate footprint and maybe make some cash in the process. The US has become the biggest hub<\/a> for Bitcoin mining globally, so this could be a growing trend. <\/p>\n

The story of how fossil fuel companies turned to the dirtiest cryptocurrency out there as a way to green up their books starts with a persistent gas problem. Whenever any company drills for oil, it often pushes some methane gas out of the ground, too. Methane is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. If a company lets that methane escape into the atmosphere, which they are embarrassingly frequently guilty of doing<\/a>, methane would trap heat with 80 times as much power as CO2 over the next 20 years. Yikes.<\/p>\n

Oil companies will often reinject some of that gas into the ground \u2014 not out of the goodness of their hearts but to keep up the pressure that drives oil up out of wells. <\/p>\n

But there isn\u2019t always enough room to put the excess gas back in the ground. The alternative? Light it on fire. Burning the methane, called \u201cflaring\u201d in industry-speak, releases CO2. When it comes to the climate, this is a harm reduction approach. Not releasing gas in the first place would be best \u2014 but releasing CO2 is marginally better than letting more potent methane float up into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

The downside to this \u2014 apart from adding to a climate crisis that\u2019s killing people<\/a> and making entire communities unlivable<\/a> \u2014 is that burning methane is kind of like rolling up a wad of cash and smoking it. You see, methane\u2019s marketing nickname is \u201cnatural gas.\u201d More than $1 billion<\/a> in natural gas goes up in smoke every year in the US through flaring.<\/p>\n

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