US energy company opens mining facility in Middle East to use stranded natural..

[franky1]

I believe that Elon is doing something that would be good in this situation though. He is definitely a clown there is no denying that but we should not just ignore all the good he might do just because he is not a good person. If he could do some solar panel type of stuff which he is known for, he could definitely end up doing something much better with it because it would be green and he would be able to not spend any money at all.

This would be profiting you a lot and it would end up with a great business for him. Obviously he would need to work towards getting too many machines, because he has the solar power but he doesn't have the asic miners.

solar is not really viable right now.
firstly in general the sun is only out for like 8 good hours a day (i said in general, non specific to any region or latitude or weather condition)
so if a solar panel can produce atleast 1kwh at peak sun, it would require atleast 9 panels to power one 3kw asic 24/7 along with batteries. 3kwh asic x24=72kwh

this is because you need to generate 3kw x 24 in only an 8 hour window (72kwh)
9(1kw panel)*8hours=72
(i said atleast a few times so dont knitpick exact numbers. im trying to keep demo example simple)

however, here is the rub. comparing to just buying electric 'on demand' a solar panel has to be bought up-front, where the cost is then spread out usually over 10 years to become effectively break even/at cost of on demand electric costs... but.. bitcoin hashrate doesnt stay the same for 10 years to only need that same 9 panels to power the same asic for 10 years. to get the same mining reward income to pay off the costs.
hashrate climbs meaning you need to double your asics not every 10 years, (break even period) but every ~6-18 months. meaning its never break even.

...
i say this because the pilot project is not aimed at just dropping a mining microfarm shipping crate next to every 'flare' pipe well and just mining at every well, without doing the research/cost analysis..
its actually to see how much it costs to add a turbine to the pipe. how much that turbine can generate (each pipe emits different levels of gas and different quality of gas, which effects how much it can generate).
and then how much power generation can power how many asics which determines how much coin can be mined, and if that coin can profit enough short term to cover the long term cost of the whole project.
EG if they never breaks even. they wont roll it out to all the other THOUSANDS of wells in the region

..
with that said. im sure the oil company that is flaring gas, can do research on the amount of co2 the flare is emitting and account that as a 'carbon credit' value/loss. and if they can effectively show how they convert that pipe into a utility for some function where it 'captures' instead of emits carbon. they can then get some environmental/government grant to pay for the conversion costs (again needs research and demonstration of process) as well as feasibility and accounting reports, before adopting large scale over thousands of flare pipes

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[buwaytress]

Never seem to be able to find posts from before but this was something had spoken about the last time someone suggested it'd be expensive to mine in Southeast Asia, at least in my location -- hot, humid, and with very expensive corporate prices for electricity.

But on my island (it's a huge one, more like a mini continent) where the refineries are, I saw them myself first time 30 years ago, just chimneys... rows of them just flaring the gas non-stop 24/7. It's still flaring to this day.

So the natural gas is cheap, cheapest form of fuel anywhere in the country, but because there's no pipeline (also small population) other than to East Asia there's still too much. They try to bottle up as much as possible (why we still use cannisters to cook and to run LNG cars) but it's still way too much.

I keep thinking it's an idea to try and stave off the gas to run industries like mining anyway. It's not like that gas is being saved, it's all just been flaring for 3 decades.

[FanEagle]

I get that using crypto mining for such a deal would definitely work out well enough, but that doesn't mean that we should be expecting all the people who are in energy business to start using mining neither.

I had a friend who works as an engineer in a wind turbine company, they have like 20+ of them all around the same place, not side by side so it is a long distance up in the hills, but they are in the same vicinity of each other. He saw that they could use like some excess amount that’s left, and calculated that the amount of profit you could make using that energy is so small that the whole operation would not be really worth it, because energy companies are making THAT much profit, where bitcoin mining looks nothing at all.

[DapanasFruit]

This is a good development generally speaking in the sense that something that is wasted can then be used for something valuable...which can mean a win-win for many parties involved. I am seeing a good trend of many people and organizations getting creative with the use of power relative to Bitcoin mining...and it is because even at today's rate in the market it can still be a very profitable venture. We should not always be listening to people who are against Bitcoin based on old facts and bad science because these people don't like the idea behind Bitcoin even if its mining will never be using any kind of power.

[SirLancelot]

I get that using crypto mining for such a deal would definitely work out well enough, but that doesn't mean that we should be expecting all the people who are in energy business to start using mining neither.

I had a friend who works as an engineer in a wind turbine company, they have like 20+ of them all around the same place, not side by side so it is a long distance up in the hills, but they are in the same vicinity of each other. He saw that they could use like some excess amount that’s left, and calculated that the amount of profit you could make using that energy is so small that the whole operation would not be really worth it, because energy companies are making THAT much profit, where bitcoin mining looks nothing at all.

That is mainly because you are approaching from the wrong side. If you are an energy company that considers mining, that would be the other way around and why spend so much money like that, but if you end up being a mining company, which tries to cover their own energy needs, that would be quite alright, because that is what you will produce, not more and wouldn't really be a business based on selling electricity to anyone, just use your own.

There are literally regular homes that are built with solar panels and tesla powerwalls that generate enough electricity during summer that they can make a profit from it depending on where they are. So, it is not energy company going into mining, it is mining company going into energy that will matter.

[Leviathan.007]

I think is news has two different sides. Opening a new mining facility will be a piece of good news for us to see a new mining facility going to be open soon in the middle east but even if they use the standard natural gas which will produce less co2 compared to the gas they usually consume in the middle east, still they are using fossil energy resources to supply the energy for the miners and this is not good for the environment, but surely that's very much profitable for them because I guess using the natural gas is middle east is going to be cheaper compared to other places.