Hertz-Shargel: Flared-gas Bitcoin mining appears to offer a net emissions benefit
Ben Hertz-Shargel · The great Bitcoin energy debate · May 11, 2023 · at 42:31
Wood Mackenzie's Ben Hertz-Shargel and Shayle Kann evaluate whether siting mobile Bitcoin mining rigs at remote oil and gas wellheads reduces methane emissions from stranded gas that lacks pipeline access.
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“My understanding is that flaring is very kind of deeply imperfect in that you do a lot of methane leakage or more than you'd want, and that if you are properly capturing this flared gas, this gas, and you can run it through, you know, a sort of a gen set to, and to run a Bitcoin mine, you end up with more purely You know combusted and therefore kind of CO two that comes out of it. And so therefore it's an improvement. It's a reduction in the emissions of that gas that was, that had to come out because basically you don't have the natural gas transmission at these sites to economically to route it and to do anything useful with it. So it's gotta come out and, you know, assuming that the well is operational and it seems like an improvement and therefore that it would be a net benefit.”
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