Life is full of ironies.

Life is full of ironies.
I recently read an interesting article in the www.bitcoin.com newsite, which built a story around bitcoin mining being potentially good for the environment. This of course caught my eye because Bitcoin mining is often criticized for being energy intensive and increasing the use of fossil fuels around the world, thus accelerating global warming.

Now regardless where you stand on global warming and bitcoin mining I think you will find this article interesting, because the basic premise was that fossil fuels are here to stay, at least for the short term future and many, if not most operations to liberate this black gold called crude oil from the earth release large amounts of methane gas into the atmosphere. Since methane is a known contributor to global warming, this is bad for the environment. Now along comes an innovative mechanical engineer who figures out how to scavenge or vacuum up much of this methane and then burn it on the spot to generate energy, and the energy is used to power Bitcoin miners. The irony is that the Bitcoin is more valuable then the methane burned. Similarly, the other natural gases propane and ethane can be burned on the spot to power bitcoin miners.

This operation has been adopted by several large companies and the units ship to the site in trailers and are leased and run by mining specialists. The oil companies only provide the access and manpower for access. The bitcoin mining firm takes care of the miners.

An additional irony here is that the miners don't use mining pools. The machines possess so much mining power they are successful without being a part of these large mining pools, so they are also contributing to decentralization of Bitcoin.
Imagine that, good for the environment, by burring methane, ethane and propane, which would otherwise be released into the environment.

@shortsegments