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Comment by klyrs | Hacker News Reader

IIRC, flaring methane is better for the environment, because pound for pound, methane is a significantly more potent greenhouse gas than the CO2 that is produced. Capturing the CO2 would be preferable, of course, but this one's a bit counterintuitive.

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I think methane lasts for less than a decade in the atmosphere before it's broken down into C02, so considering this has been likely going on for a long time, reducing it would probably have an immediate effect.

>I think methane lasts for less than a decade in the atmosphere before it's broken down into C02

Source? Google info box says:

>Methane is a powerful greenhouses gas with a 100-year global warming potential 28-34 times that of CO2. Measured over a 20-year period, that ratio grows to 84-86 times.

>Methane, by contrast, is mostly removed from the atmosphere by chemical reaction, persisting for about 12 years. Thus although methane is a potent greenhouse gas, its effect is relatively short-lived.

I was off slightly, but not an order of magnitude.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/jan/16/greenhou...

But you could burn it with a purpose, like in a generator.

That assumes there's use for a generator out near the pump. I don't think that's generally the case, meaning the methane would need to be stored and transported. Considering it's literally these companies' business to store and transport fuel, I'd assume if it were economically viable to do so, they would. That's not to say something like a carbon-tax wouldn't sway the economics toward that side, but it's not just as simple as "burn the fuel in a generator"

For sure if you can transport liquids and gas you can transport some electricity to the nearby villages/city you pollute with your gases. I think you can make profiit but not big profit from this so why bother. It is like tech giants, why bother with a good product with paying customers if it does not make obscene amount of money.

Sure, but this is one of those arguments that only works well in theory.

Oil and gas companies are usually distinct from the utilities (regulated monopolies) that provide electricity. If you want the O&G companies to subsidize the local populations energy, it makes more sense for them to do so with their existing infrastructure rather than forcing them to use some inefficient process. It will be cheaper for all involved.

The better solution is to just price the externality with regulation.

The generator can power local bitcoin mining farm: no need to store/transport, frees up electricity in other places by making miners there less profitable.

Do you think there are local bitcoin mining in the middle of, say, the Permian Basin?

One of the points missed in this conversation is that a lot of oil/gas drilling occurs in remote or inhospitable regions.

I don’t think there is, but then if we’re talking about putting waste flare to use rather than release it into the atmosphere and pay hefty tax, I can totally see remote (even ocean) sites carry a standard container-worth of miners - potentially would pay for itself.

Edit: dropped a word

I'm curious why you think they haven't done so already? My guess is that the volatility of crypto creates too much risk for the infrastructure investment.

It’s too radical right now, while people mistakenly think that consumption of energy equals production of energy from dirty sources it probably won’t become the norm. But eventually it will.

There are companies that have solutions: https://ezblockchain.net/

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