Here's a great piece from our friend Steve Barbour of Upstream Data that you freaks should send to anyone who utters dumb phrases about how bad Bitcoin is for the environment. In just 6-minutes, Steve lays out the case for Bitcoin as one of the biggest boons to energy efficiency the world has ever seen. Solving a problem that man has been trying to figure out for the better part of two centuries; the ability to capture, utilize and profit from vented/flared gases produced when extracting oil or natural gas from the earth.

For the first time in history, natural gas producers do not have to emit an untold amount of waste into the atmosphere, wasting energy that could have been productive elsewhere, and missing out on the potential profits that could have been accrued. Bitcoin mining finally creates an incentive to capture and utilize these resources. It is now fiscally irresponsible for energy producers of this type to not utilize the technologies that Upstream Data is producing. A solution to their problem has been found and now it is only a matter of time, energy and capital before every oil and natural gas field are outfitted with these shipping containers that produce digital gold.

At a time when the world is screaming about global warming and energy consumption, it's imperative that we stop talking and actually implement the solutions that exist today. Marches around the world and calls for carbon taxes don't do much other than make people feel good about themselves in my honest opinion. If we're going to solve this problem, we need actionable, tangible solutions like the one Upstream provides. I do not think historically incompetent and greedy politicians are going to solve this problem with pen strokes. When they eventually attempt to solve the problem with pen strokes, the market will route around them because the demand for energy on a planet with 7 billion+ people is not going to wane anytime soon. You're delusional if you think otherwise.

Equipped with this framing, we should move as quickly as possible to cap every leaking pipe that is sending gases into the atmosphere and turn that energy into bitcoin. It's clean. It's profitable. And it can be implemented today. Time to get to work.

Final thought...

Embarrassed to admit that my parents sent me to a pediatrician until I was 20 years old.