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Using flare gas for a useful purpose is a good thing. Does 'mine crypto' qualify as a useful purpose? To some, maybe, but to me energy used for crypto is still

Using flare gas for a useful purpose is a good thing. Does 'mine crypto' qualify as a useful purpose? To some, maybe, but to me energy used for crypto is still wasted energy. I'd really like to see innovators step up and disrupt the gas industry by coming up with new ways of using/capturing/exploiting the energy that otherwise would be wasted in flares. Mining crypto falls far short of that, imho.

herendin2 5y ago
How about a data center onsite?
- tedivm 5y ago
  It's been done with methane reclamation at landfills, and is still being experimented with. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/microsoft-opens-prototype-data-center-powered-by-methane/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/microsoft-opens-p...
- asciimike 5y ago
  Hi! I'm the product lead for [Crusoe Energy's](https://crusoeenergy.com/ https://crusoeenergy.com/) cloud product, which is building a climate aligned data center powered by stranded energy (e.g. flared natural gas). Can confirm it's definitely possible, though definitely a non-trivial problem :) If you're interested in using our cloud or joining the team to help scale our data center deployments or software, feel free to reach out (mike at crusoecloud dot com).
- landemva 5y ago
  Typical data center workloads need great communications (bandwidth, latency, redundancy) and very high power uptime, which is challenging to achieve at remote sites. Some IT workloads with less stringent communication needs are better for remote data centers.
caymanjim 5y ago
I disagree that it's a good thing. It's still being burned, so the environment damage is still there. Except now it's being whitewashed. Instead of the obvious, visible waste and damage of a flare, the companies get to sweep it under the rug and pretend things have improved. Once again a fossil energy company is externalizing their pollution damage. If they were able to pump electricity into the grid it would be slightly better, but not much. Using it for crypto is turning one bad thing into another bad thing, and sweeping the true cost under the rug.
- asciimike 5y ago
  > I disagree that it's a good thing. It's still being burned, so the environment damage is still there. I won't try and argue against "if we never had fossil fuels, the environment would be better" (I agree, but we also probably wouldn't be communicating right now, were that not the case), but by mitigating flares, you can significantly reduce methane emissions (98+%), CO2 (~70%)/CO (95%), VOCs, etc. It's not "good" for the environment, but it's a hell of a lot better than what's currently being done. Lots of folks ITT have discussed a carbon tax on emissions; think of flare mitigation via crypto as an economic incentive for companies to voluntarily reduce their emissions much faster than a state/federal government can move to enact legislation. It achieves the same end result, just one is aligned with the current dominant economic system in the country, and one would likely end up in political gridlock.
- landemva 5y ago
  We can likely agree that venting is not good. Flaring is better, though the combustion can be incomplete (windy days). Combustion in a generator is much more complete, so this is a significant pollution reduction. It is moving in the right direction.
zozbot234 5y ago
> Does 'mine crypto' qualify as a useful purpose? It's using free or nearly-free power to displace an equal amount of compute that would otherwise occur elsewhere, likely using grid power. That unused power can now go to a better use. So yes, in a roundabout way it is useful.
- ip26 5y ago
  It wouldn't occur elsewhere. The way the incentives are built, anywhere energy is cheaper than the expected return of mining, all excess energy will be consumed mining. Thus, new sources of inexpensive energy translate to more mining than before.
  - paconbork 5y ago
    But more mining reduces the expected return of mining, so a miner would need marginally cheaper energy in order to break even.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    More mining only results when the marginal kW of power becomes cheaper. Using otherwise-wasted power for mining does not affect prices at the margin, it's almost certainly a pure gain for the producer. The most expensive supply of something is the first to drop away when gains to the marginal supplier decrease (because some of these gains were opportunistically grabbed by inframarginal suppliers).
  - samatman 5y ago
    This is backward: the way the incentives are built, anytime the market value of $reward + $fees BTC is $value, the miners will spend ($value - $margin) * %total-of-pool to mine that block. It could only consume 'all excess energy' if the block reward is absurdly high, which it isn't.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
vmception 5y ago
Its useful that crypto mining caused you to notice this issue in the first place. Like, where were you (all) before crypto mining filled in the void? Decades of looking for a use case that reduces emissions, this does that while producing a valuable digital byproduct sellable on the open market. It doesnt really matter what that byproduct could theoretically be used for. A bitcoin has more use than a tradeable carbon credit, which also just has a theoretical application of reducing emissions in the future.

herendin2 5y ago

How about a data center onsite?

tedivm 5y ago
It's been done with methane reclamation at landfills, and is still being experimented with. https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/microsoft-opens-prototype-data-center-powered-by-methane/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/microsoft-opens-p...
asciimike 5y ago
Hi! I'm the product lead for [Crusoe Energy's](https://crusoeenergy.com/ https://crusoeenergy.com/) cloud product, which is building a climate aligned data center powered by stranded energy (e.g. flared natural gas). Can confirm it's definitely possible, though definitely a non-trivial problem :) If you're interested in using our cloud or joining the team to help scale our data center deployments or software, feel free to reach out (mike at crusoecloud dot com).
landemva 5y ago
Typical data center workloads need great communications (bandwidth, latency, redundancy) and very high power uptime, which is challenging to achieve at remote sites. Some IT workloads with less stringent communication needs are better for remote data centers.

caymanjim 5y ago

I disagree that it's a good thing. It's still being burned, so the environment damage is still there. Except now it's being whitewashed. Instead of the obvious, visible waste and damage of a flare, the companies get to sweep it under the rug and pretend things have improved. Once again a fossil energy company is externalizing their pollution damage. If they were able to pump electricity into the grid it would be slightly better, but not much. Using it for crypto is turning one bad thing into another bad thing, and sweeping the true cost under the rug.

asciimike 5y ago
> I disagree that it's a good thing. It's still being burned, so the environment damage is still there. I won't try and argue against "if we never had fossil fuels, the environment would be better" (I agree, but we also probably wouldn't be communicating right now, were that not the case), but by mitigating flares, you can significantly reduce methane emissions (98+%), CO2 (~70%)/CO (95%), VOCs, etc. It's not "good" for the environment, but it's a hell of a lot better than what's currently being done. Lots of folks ITT have discussed a carbon tax on emissions; think of flare mitigation via crypto as an economic incentive for companies to voluntarily reduce their emissions much faster than a state/federal government can move to enact legislation. It achieves the same end result, just one is aligned with the current dominant economic system in the country, and one would likely end up in political gridlock.
landemva 5y ago
We can likely agree that venting is not good. Flaring is better, though the combustion can be incomplete (windy days). Combustion in a generator is much more complete, so this is a significant pollution reduction. It is moving in the right direction.

zozbot234 5y ago

> Does 'mine crypto' qualify as a useful purpose? It's using free or nearly-free power to displace an equal amount of compute that would otherwise occur elsewhere, likely using grid power. That unused power can now go to a better use. So yes, in a roundabout way it is useful.

ip26 5y ago
It wouldn't occur elsewhere. The way the incentives are built, anywhere energy is cheaper than the expected return of mining, all excess energy will be consumed mining. Thus, new sources of inexpensive energy translate to more mining than before.
- paconbork 5y ago
  But more mining reduces the expected return of mining, so a miner would need marginally cheaper energy in order to break even.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  More mining only results when the marginal kW of power becomes cheaper. Using otherwise-wasted power for mining does not affect prices at the margin, it's almost certainly a pure gain for the producer. The most expensive supply of something is the first to drop away when gains to the marginal supplier decrease (because some of these gains were opportunistically grabbed by inframarginal suppliers).
- samatman 5y ago
  This is backward: the way the incentives are built, anytime the market value of $reward + $fees BTC is $value, the miners will spend ($value - $margin) * %total-of-pool to mine that block. It could only consume 'all excess energy' if the block reward is absurdly high, which it isn't.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

vmception 5y ago

Its useful that crypto mining caused you to notice this issue in the first place. Like, where were you (all) before crypto mining filled in the void? Decades of looking for a use case that reduces emissions, this does that while producing a valuable digital byproduct sellable on the open market. It doesnt really matter what that byproduct could theoretically be used for. A bitcoin has more use than a tradeable carbon credit, which also just has a theoretical application of reducing emissions in the future.