2/17 on top of gas flaring, direct methane emissions, or "leaks" from fossil fuel operations, if captured and marketed, would have made an additional 180 bcm" according to IEA, (1760 TWh, 3,5x 🇫🇷) iea.org/reports/global…
3/17 Flaring+Venting = 6,5x the power consumption of a country the size of France 🇫🇷, or 3150 TWh!
Total net electricity generation in the EU 🇪🇺 was 2 664 TWh in 2020.
4/17 And how bad Doc ? (1/3)
"On top of GHG emissions, black carbon is another pollutant released by gas flares, produced through the incomplete combustion. It may have the second-largest warming effect on the atmosphere, after carbon dioxide" (World Bank)
5/17 And how bad Doc ? (2/3)
"Gas flaring introduces toxic pollutants such as sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which can lead to environmental problems such as acid rain" (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
6/17 And how bad Doc ? (3/3)
Methane is over 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide, resulting from flaring. "methane has contributed around 30% of observed global warming to date". (IEA)
7/17 A cold reality : "efforts to reduce global gas flaring volumes have stalled over the last decade. Significant progress in some countries has not offset flaring increases in others" quoting the World Bank...
So there is that : it's not going away.
8/17 So now you ask me :
why on earth is methane vented directly in the atmosphere and not flared ?
Why is gas (methane) flared and not brought to the market for better usage ?
9/17 It's really simple Marty...
In many cases, oil fields are located in remote and inaccessible places. These sites are hard to access, and they may not produce consistent or large volumes of associated gas that operators can use.
10/17 In some jurisdictions, there is just no incentive structure, regulations, or lobby to tackle gas venting.
A disruptive technology that can be deployed anywhere in the world with an internet connection. #BTC miners that compete between each other seek the cheapest form of energy to remain competitive.
12/17 #BTC miners can potentially harvest 3150 TWh of free natural gas or methane.
Assuming a conservative yield to generate power (30%), that is around 1 000 TWh of free Power available.
5x times the total consumption of the Bitcoin netowrk in 2022. Read that again.
Dear @Emma_Marris you admit that miners have an an incentive to feed itself on methane, in a location-agnostic fashion, highly dispatcheable, and yet you failed to see how that's the best ESG tech ever invented ?
@Emma_Marris Slashing CH4 emissions - anywhere worldwide - is by far the biggest lever we get. And yet failed miserably for the past 3 decaded to mitigate it.