Since tumbling down the bitcoin, rabbit hole, I have had a lot of fun experiences learning about bitcoin with a focus on mining. One of the adventures that I was fortunate to have was mining bitcoin, at an oil well in a remote location in Wyoming.
When I started mining bitcoin at home there were challenges to overcome as I knew nothing about electricity beyond the basics of installing light switches, changing, outlets, etc.
Mining at any scale beyond a handful of machines is quite a different experience. As you add more ASICS to your mine, the time that it takes to manage the operation increases, as do the problems that need to be fixed on a regular basis.
Adding to these complexities, we were operating on an oil well using a natural gas generator powered by the gas flare at the well that was burning off the wasted methane that the oil well owner had no way to bring to market.
This was one of the hardest and most fun things I’ve ever done.
The first thing that we had to do was get permission from the Wyoming minerals commission to run the natural gas generator at the well. The reason for this is that the state wants to maintain control and keep records of emissions.
This was necessary as the requirement to maintain emissions within a certain range was the only reason we were invited to operate at the well in the first place. There was no pipeline to bring the natural gas to market, and before bitcoin, burning it was the only viable option.
When we presented, the governor of Wyoming was there, and we got a chance to briefly meet with him and talk bitcoin.
We were given permission to operate and began installing our equipment at the oil well. For our deployment, this consisted of a 350 kW natural gas generator connected to a 16 foot mining container that could hold 100 S19’s.
For Internet, we initially chose a land based wireless Internet service provider. These are common in the remote parts of Wyoming, because the terrain is generally flat, and there is line of sight for the Internet service provider to establish connections. We actually ended up replacing this solution with a HughesNet satellite dish as Starlink was not available at this time. Mining bitcoin does not require a lot of bandwidth, and HughesNet proved to be more stable. I use Starlink RV for these types of deployments now as you can turn it on and off and use it at any location if you need to move around.
When we began installing everything, I thought that the natural gas generator uptime and maintenance would be our biggest challenge. It turned out that the generator was pretty easy. If the oil well was operating properly, then natural gas fed the generator and made electricity. We were mining bitcoin.
The biggest challenge we faced was the weather. Wyoming is flat, and the wind is unforgiving. When it’s hot outside, it’s blasting the intake fans on your container with hot air. If you face your intakes the wrong way, the wind is working against your fans, making that side of the container hotter. Even if you face it the correct direction, you’re still sucking in hot air and in summer and during peak hot days, we were losing 10% to 20% of our hash because the machines were simply too hot to operate efficiently.
When it’s cold out, it’s still windy and when it snows it creates drifts that can be as high as the mining container. Support personnel have a hard time reaching the site as all the roads are gravel and the weather beats them down. Even the large semi trucks that come to take the oil have a hard time getting in during the worst parts of winter.
Even with these difficulties, it was an incredible experience. We had 100 S19’s running for a total of 10,000 TH/s. I basically lived at the well for a month while we got everything tuned and running smoothly.
This was a lot of fun to set up and run, however, not being local to Wyoming ultimately made the project unsustainable. We had a very low purchase price for the natural gas as it was stranded, however, we were leasing our generator and had a cost associated with another company to keep that running. We also had to contract a support person to go out to the site when necessary to change fans, reset machines and breakers and all the other little issues that happen at any bitcoin mine. This was a one and a half hour trip each way, and every time this happened we incurred a trip charge and time for the person to be on site. Communication was also an issue as there was no cellular service, and we had to direct the support person via chat.
We ended up selling the location to another company and moved our machines to an on grid location that ended up being about the same cost to operate when you factor in all the extra costs in Wyoming.
Stranded natural gas is an excellent energy source for mining bitcoin. The holy grail is to find a location where you can get the gas very cheap, own and operate your own generator and have that location be reasonably close to civilization to support it yourself or to contract someone else at a cost that keeps the project economically viable. If I had a natural gas well on my own land, I would set this up and let it make bitcoin 24/7. If you are one of the lucky ones that does have a well on your land, hit me up, and I’ll help you install a bitcoin factory in your backyard.
About me:
Bitcoin only and aspiring sovereign individual, trying my best to homestead in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri and mine bitcoin on stranded energy in the Show Me state. I’m looking for like-minded individuals to help us build Bitcoin mines owned and operated by plebs.
Website: https://bitcoinalchemy.io
Nostr (GigaBTC): npub1f5qxsvu27hh8nsr9z0024upyjgj8h0m6h55lz9hxu5xptz4k5emsed576p