Crusoe Energy Systems has a new patent application publication relating to systems and methods for generating and consuming power from natural gas.

Currently, stranded natural gas represents a very low-cost power generation opportunity. Despite existing across the most prominent shale fields in the U.S., many oil and gas operators in pipeline-constrained environments offer their natural gas for low cost, sometimes even at a loss to the operator, so that they can produce oil.

Crusoe believes they have found the solution to this problem: distributed computing. Cryptocurrency mining requires innovative and inexpensive electricity sources, requiring approximately 29 terawatts of electricity per hour per year on a global basis. Crusoe hopes to generate electricity from natural gas produced from oil wells, using this electricity to operate power-intensive, modular processing units. These modular processing units can mine cryptocurrency and perform other distributed computing tasks to generate additional revenue.

This patent application publication is the second for Crusoe in the Cryptocurrency Sector, classified under the “Energy” subcategory. Also, this publication comes after a recent article where Goldman Sachs predicts natural gas prices doubling by next winter. The predictions in this article run counter to the U.S. Energy Information Association’s (EIA) forecast, signaling that renewable energy production will overtake natural gas.