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Bitcoin miners are finding ever-more efficient ways to burn fossil fuels to manufacture cryptocurrency.

Like the prospectors during the California gold rush of 1849, today's cryptocurrency miners seek gold from "them thar hills," and this time those hills just happen to be in Wyoming. Mining for cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin, doesn't require a pickax and a gold pan. Instead, cryptocurrency miners earn Bitcoin by verifying Bitcoin transactions, such as buying and selling. How is Bitcoin mined? In a process conceived by Bitcoin's anonymous founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, miners complete "blocks" of transactions on the blockchain, which is an electronic ledger. Bitcoin mine...

3:59 Just when it looked like 40 orphaned natural-gas wells in northwestern South Dakota would finally be plugged, the story took a turn into the realm of cryptocurrency.  A Texas company, Spyglass Cedar Creek, drilled the wells 15 years ago on the vast grasslands in the vicinity of Buffalo.   South Dakota was stuck holding the bag after the project failed, because the state had only required the company to post about $30,000 in bonds. Last fall, the state hired a contractor to plug the wells for about $430,000. The contractor finished seven of the wells before pausing for the winter. ...