I posted about our on-grid strategy at Standard Bitcoin.
Now let's talk about our off-grid strategy, which aims to tackle the stranded well problem in Appalachia with bitcoin mining data centers and generators produced by Upstream Data.
Appalachia is filled with shallow oil basins that were drilled years ago. At the time, it only made sense to extract and transport the oil out of the area. There were very few nat gas pipelines built to bring the associated gas to market because it wasn't economically viable.
This has created a massive stranded well issue. When the oil wells went dry producers capped the associated gas wells and left them behind with the land owners. A lot of these wells are poorly maintained, degrading, and sometimes leaking methane into the air.
The only profitable solution to this problem is bitcoin mining because bitcoin mining is location agnostic. Meaning that miners are willing to show up to the well to monetize the gas on site. Nothing else makes much economic sense.
Our ability to leverage this gas to mine bitcoin has some positive knock-on effects; it ensures the wells are properly maintained, prevents methane leak, and turns a stranded asset into the hardest money on the planet. Turning waste into bitcoin is a boon for economic prosperity.
Beyond this, we are exploring ways to make sure the land owners benefit from allowing us to come on their property to monetize the gas. Aligning incentives to help them become more economically secure.
In the long-run we believe this alignment will strengthen rural America economically and breathe life back into a part of the country that has been cast aside by the coastal elites. Strong rural economies are desperately needed if we're going to right the ship in the US.
I should caveat this with the fact that not every stranded well is equal. We may not be able to save all of them, but we can certainly make a material dent to begin turning waste into prosperity for those who desperately need it.
Another caveat, stranded wells are just one subset of abandoned wells that are scattered throughout the country. There are ~120,000 orphaned wells out there. These are wells with no current owner or maintainer. This is another problem that bitcoin miners can help solve.
There are many problems to solve before we perfect our off-grid model at Standard. Many of them have to do with logistics. However, they are very solvable problems at the end of the day and we plan to work our hardest to tackle them.
We're very passionate about what we're doing because we believe deeply that the work we are doing both on-grid and off-grid to turn wasted resources into sats is going to have many compounding positive effects on the areas we operate in.
Bitcoin is a powerful tool that is revitalizing neglected areas of the US. Most do not see it yet, but they will in time. We plan to highlight the benefits of bitcoin mining on energy systems through our work as we stack some sats along the way.
We're going to win.
