Argentina Starts Bitcoin Mining Thru State-Owned Energy Provider
Argentina’s state-owned energy provider, YPF, said on Sunday that it started delivering electricity to an unnamed multinational crypto mining company.
YPF Luz, the company’s renewable energy branch, began a 1 megawatt (MW) test operation three months ago, providing power generated from waste gas left over from oil production, YPF Luz CEO Martn Mandarano told local press agency Télam.
The project is set in the south of Argentina, in the Vaca Muerta region, which is recognized for its shale oil and gas potential.
YPF Luz CEO Mandarano said:
“The company plans to open a second pilot – this one 8MW in size – before the end of the year.
“We started to develop this generation pilot for cryptocurrency mining with a vision of sustainability and business from flare natural gas, which cannot be harnessed during exploration and at the beginning of the production of an oil field.”
Taking waste gas from oil drilling and using it to power Bitcoin mining is becoming increasingly interesting for energy producers. Bot ExxonMobil and ConocoPhilips have started making use of the renewable energy source for crypto mining.
More than half of the energy used in Bitcoin mining nowadays comes from renewable energy. According to Michael Saylor, MicroStrategy chairman, “Bitcoin miners go to the end of the earth, to the end of the grid” to use energy that otherwise would go to waste.“They’re using energy that otherwise would have been wasted. It’s either wasted hydroelectric energy, or for example natural gas wells that are about to be closed in and they either have to close them in or flare them,” Saylor said in March of 2021 defending Bitcoin’s carbon footprint.
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Source: igaming
