Crypto glossary
Stranded energy (flared gas mining)
Stranded energy is power that cannot reach a market, such as flared gas or surplus renewables, which bitcoin miners buy cheaply to run their machines.
Energy is stranded when it is produced where there is no buyer or no transmission capacity: natural gas released alongside oil at remote wells and burned off in flares, hydropower in regions with little industry, or wind and solar output that grid operators must curtail when supply exceeds demand. Because bitcoin mining needs only electricity and an internet connection, miners can set up containers right next to these sources.
Supporters argue that this turns waste into revenue and can make new renewable projects viable, since miners act as a buyer of last resort. Burning flared gas in generators for mining also converts methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into carbon dioxide more completely than many flares do. Several oil producers in North America have hosted mining units at well sites.
The narrative has limits. Stranded sources are a minority of total mining energy, and a site that stops being stranded, for example when a new power line arrives, may keep mining instead of supplying homes. Environmental benefits depend on careful measurement and on whether the energy would really have been wasted.
Example
An oil company in North Dakota connects generators to gas that it used to flare and powers a container of ASICs, earning bitcoin from gas that previously brought in nothing.