Cryptocurrencies have now hit big oil, with CNBC recently reporting that ExxonMobil has been quietly mining bitcoin in North Dakota, where it operates alongside XTO Energy in eight counties in the northwest portion of the state. It’s unclear how many facilities are swapping gas flaring for crypto mining but the company that ExxonMobil contracted with, Crusoe Energy Systems, provides the same service to Equinor ASA in Norway, Canada’s Enerplus, and the Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy. CNBC reports that ExxonMobil may even expand its crypto mining partnership into operations in Alaska, Nigeria, Guyana, and Germany. According to Crusoe, it’s a sound investment: oil giants get even more money and reduce their emissions.
“We’re really moving the needle on flared volumes,” Crusoe President Cully Cavness told CNBC. “More than 10 million cubic feet of gas per day that would be flared is not flared because we’ve deployed our systems.” Crusoe harnesses excess energy for bitcoin mining and claims to reduce carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions by 63%, methane by 98%, carbon monoxide by 95%, VOC [volatile organic compounds] by 100%, and nitrogen oxides by 89%. It’s worth noting that all of these emissions occur throughout the production process and, though CO2e is considered more comprehensive than just measuring carbon dioxide, the rate that CO2e emissions are increasing from oilfield flares, 63% is simply not enough of a reduction to justify wasting energy on Bitcoin.
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Of course, the oil and gas industry is only interested in boosting profits instead of making a meaningful change to how companies do business. This has never been more evident than today. In fact, on Tuesday, Natural Resources Committee Chair Raúl Grijalva slammed fossil fuel executives for declining to testify at an April 5 meeting on “the fossil fuel industry’s failure to help stabilize gas prices during the ongoing crisis in Ukraine despite their record profits.” EOG Resources, Devon Energy, and Occidental Petroleum apparently have no interest in even pretending to care about consumers. “I invited these companies to come before the Committee and make their case, but apparently they don’t think it’s worth defending,” Grijalva said in a statement. “Their silence tells us all we need to know—that cries for more drilling and looser regulations are nothing more than another age-old attempt to line their own pockets.”
Because of their unwillingness to cooperate and testify, the hearing itself has been canceled. Between the oil and gas giants’ silence and ExxonMobil and others’ covert plans for “green” crypto mining, it seems polluters have a major accountability problem they’re unwilling to solve.