Oil and gas operators in the Rockies region are crypto-mining with what would otherwise be flared gas. Here’s how it works and the monetizing-while-greening opportunity from Cully Cavness, president and co-founder of Crusoe Energy.
Crusoe Energy provides oil and gas companies with a fast, low cost and simple solution to natural gas flaring through the company’s patented digital flare mitigation systems.
“Globally, there is more than five trillion cubic feet of gas flared annually,” Cavness said during Hart Energy’s recently held DUG Bakken and Rockies virtual conference. “And if that gas was captured and converted into electricity, it would be approximately enough electricity to power all of the continent of Africa, where more than one billion people live.”
On the other side of the equitation is data centers, according to Cavness who went on to explain that the global data center fleet consumes more electricity than the economy of Germany, which is the largest industrialized economy in Europe.
“Our insight at Crusoe was on one side of this equation is this very energy intensive user that is looking for lower costs and lower environmental impactful ways to source that energy,” he said of Bitcoin. “On the other side is an industry that is wasting a lot of energy and doing so in a very environmentally harmful or at least inefficient way—flaring is certainly not a perfect process.”
What Crusoe developed is a solution the company calls digital flare mitigation. Cavness said essentially Crusoe deploys modular mobile data centers to the oil field along with power generation systems that operate on rich gas, meaning that the gas does not need to be processed before it can come into the generator. It is essentially wellhead gas, he noted.
“What we do is convert the stranded, flare gas into electricity through those rich firm generators,” he said. “Then we use that electricity to power the modular data centers and then we use the data centers we connect to the outside world with anything from wireless internet using microwave towers, satellite internet and in some cases we build our own fiber optic cables.”
Recommended Reading
Trial and Error: CCS Tries Out Multiple Approaches to Get Ball Rolling
2024-10-30 - Is carbon capture and sequestration about to turn the corner? Some obstacles may stand in the way.
New Revenue Stream Opens Up With Natural Gas Decarbonization
2024-10-02 - Could a lower carbon revenue stream, focused on hydrogen and solid carbon, open up for natural gas players?
Oil, Gas Execs: To Scale Up CCS, Standardize
2024-09-25 - Executives from Aethon Energy, Aker Solutions, Chevron and NOV said efficiency and repeatability—not cramming new technologies into every venture—are key to lowering costs associated with capturing CO2.
8 Rivers Lands Investment from JX Nippon for DAC Technology
2024-09-17 - An investment by JX Nippon Oil Exploration will support 8 Rivers’ Calcite direct air capture technology as it moves from pilot to commercial development, the company says.
Exxon Mobil Ramps Up $400MM CCS Project in Wyoming
2024-10-03 - The $400 million project will expand capture capacity by up to about 1.2 million metric tons of CO2 per year, Exxon Mobil said.
Comments
Add new comment
This conversation is moderated according to Hart Energy community rules. Please read the rules before joining the discussion. If you’re experiencing any technical problems, please contact our customer care team.