Data from a recent Ark Invest report highlights another sustainability and energy benefit of bitcoin (BTC) mining.

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According to the findings, there is huge potential to convert methane emissions into energy for bitcoin mining, which in turn will lead to the turbocharging of solar and wind power at local wells.

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Annual emissions from associated gas flaring amount to 140 bcm. m, and annual methane emissions amount to an additional 125 billion cubic meters. m. Thus, if left untouched, this means that 265 billion cubic meters of natural gas emissions are lost annually. However, the analysis of the methane required for the current Bitcoin hashrate is only 25 billion.

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While exploiting all emissions is not possible due to the oil industry’s pre-existing investment in flaring, capturing methane is a viable and early solution. Sam Corus of Ark Invest tweeted that more than half of all methane emitted comes from wells. This makes the location ideal for mining to capture such emissions and use them productively.

Also, instead of venting methane, it will be able to generate electricity at rates well below those currently paid by mining companies.

Recently, the mining industry has shown signs of increasing energy efficiency and moving towards sustainability.

Last week, the Bitcoin Mining Council released its Q2 Network Review. This showed that the industry’s use of sustainable energy grew by 6% compared to the same quarter in previous years. The council concluded its findings by calling bitcoin mining “one of the most sustainable industries in the world.”

However, it was an active change effort on the part of the mining industry. In the past, environmentalists have shamed the industry for its unjustified carbon footprint.

Corus suggests that while there are other uses for methane, bitcoin mining is ideal because “it is highly scalable with modular equipment that can be transported and moved between producing wells.”

While new evidence supports these claims, they are not new. There are already companies actively involved in this. Back in February, Cryptooshala spoke with Christian Cepcha, director of marketing for Slush Pool, about how miners are helping oil companies reduce flares by running their generators on natural gas that would otherwise be burned.

However, there are still skeptics. One Twitter user noted that the emissions in question do not occur naturally. Rather, they come from fossil fuel production, which, due to climate change, needs to be completely curtailed.

As the industry continues to adapt to global sustainability standards, time will tell if such solutions lead to the future of bitcoin mining and energy production.