Crypto mining advocate sees green business in abandoned gas wells

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Photo illustration of Satoshi Action Fund CEO Dennis Porter beside a data center filled with cryptocurrency mining

Den­nis Porter, of Satoshi Action Fund. Pho­to illus­tra­tion: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Pho­to: Mark Felix/Bloomberg via Get­ty Images

A new advo­cate for bit­coin min­ers, Satoshi Action Fund, believes that secur­ing the old­est cryp­tocur­ren­cy could be an effec­tive way to finance a long­stand­ing envi­ron­men­tal prob­lem in the Unit­ed States: orphaned gas wells.

Why it mat­ters: The Envi­ron­men­tal Defense Fund released a map in 2021 of 81,000 wells with no own­er of record. While there are fed­er­al funds avail­able to aid in seal­ing these wells, it’s still a daunt­ing task.

  • Den­nis Porter, founder of the orga­ni­za­tion, is push­ing pol­i­cy for bit­coin min­ers to step in, use the last remain­ing gas to mine, and then seal the well and move on. 

Dri­ving the news: On Wednes­day, the orga­ni­za­tion made its first pre­sen­ta­tion in the halls of the U.S. Con­gress, in a Sen­ate brief­ing room, to 30 to 40 peo­ple from around 10 con­gres­sion­al offices. 

  • In oper­a­tion since June 2022, the nascent group has made pre­sen­ta­tions to state leg­is­la­tors across the country.

What they’re say­ing: Porter’s mes­sage to leg­is­la­tors was: “Bit­coin min­ing is a busi­ness that dou­bles as a piece of grid infra­struc­ture,” he said in an inter­view. “It is par­tic­u­lar­ly good at reduc­ing methane emis­sions and enhanc­ing green ener­gy projects.”

In the weeds: The EPA has researched the impact of aban­doned oil and gas wells in the U.S. exten­sive­ly, and its esti­mates indi­cate they account for about 8.7% of the methane released here.

  • Methane is many, many times worse from a cli­mate change per­spec­tive than car­bon diox­ide (CO2), so every kilo­ton of methane that isn’t emit­ted goes a long way. 
  • Research shows that fed­er­al fund­ing, as is, like­ly won’t be enough to plug all the leak­ing wells, so any mech­a­nism that would make it go fur­ther could be beneficial.
  • In Porter’s vision, the pol­i­cy would pro­tect min­ers who take respon­si­bil­i­ty for a well, let them use the mine with what­ev­er fuel they can still access, and then appro­pri­ate­ly cap it and seal it so any remain­ing gas stays underground.

Of note: The min­ing oper­a­tions real­ly would come to the wellhead.

  • Small bit­coin min­ing oper­a­tions can be loaded into a mobile ship­ping con­tain­er eas­i­ly, as is already done with flared nat­ur­al gas at some active wells.

What’s next: Satoshi Action Fund has been pre­sent­ing mod­el leg­is­la­tion around the coun­try to advance the idea of recruit­ing bit­coin min­ers to cap wells.

  • Tak­ing over a well site rais­es com­plex lia­bil­i­ty issues, and that’s why Porter is push­ing for state leg­is­la­tion to make min­ers’ risks more predictable.
  • “It is a win-win-win for every­body,” he says. “It’s an inar­guable win for the envi­ron­ment. It’s an inar­guable win for the econ­o­my. And it’s an inar­guable win for those states that don’t have to spend tax­pay­er dol­lars to plug these aban­doned oil and gas wells.”

What we’re watch­ing: The group is work­ing across the coun­try, but it has seen the most trac­tion in Mis­souri and Mississippi. 

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