"Natural gas that is consumed on the site and would have otherwise been vented or flared under the authority of the Wyoming oil and gas conservation commission has no value and is exempt from taxation as long as the natural gas is certified by the Wyoming oil and gas conservation commission as to have originated from a qualifying well,” the new law reads."
But for cryptocurrency mining, you still need a generator and Internet access.
It would be interesting to read more about how the costs work out.
Every thing else cannot cost zero except for the fuel (which is what it should be since it is actually waste being recycled) so there must be no tax either on that in order to even have a chance.
You can assume the coin will be what generates tax revenue instead.
Regardless, the business might fail, but even a thin margin might still allow the most respectable scaleup when the raw fuel itself is truly free.
It might require a lot of mining installations to dim some of the brighter flares, but there should be no net increase in CO2 emission from the portion of that waste natural gas running through generators rather than the flares.
Alternatively it could also be expected that the CO2 from generators would be more physically feasible to capture without emisssion, and the coin might be lucrative enough to pay for it. It would be great if the business performance allowed for this to be one of the highest expenses and still yield adequate returns. And capture technology ideally should be able to be brought within reach in advance of it becoming cost-effective under non-free energy models.
In a free energy economy you should be able to afford to be as environmentally responsible as possible.
No doubt it would be very interesting to compare to solar and hydro mining.