Matt Lostroh, the co-founder of Giga Energy, a natural gas Bitcoin mining firm, posted a video of a mining rig converting gas into Bitcoin on Twitter in February. The footage in East Texas showed a mining machine on an oil well. The device was on land that was previously deforested.
The video went viral, receiving several reactions and comments, most of them about the mining process destroying the planet and causing pollution. However, according to Matt Lostroh, this is not the case, as explained.
More attention has shifted towards cryptocurrency mining, especially after the effects that accompany it. According to Lostroh, Giga Energy’s mining technique is not entirely ‘green,’ nor does it ultimately affect climate change. Instead, it is exploiting a quirk in a faulty system to transform waste into profit cheaply.
Proper fossil fuels still harm the environment; however, Lostroh’s firm clearly indicates that these dirty sources still power a considerable part of the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin Mining Turns Waste Into Profit
Giga Energy is doing things differently while mining bitcoin; it is not extracting fossil fuel to mine Bitcoin. Instead, as Lostroh explained;
“What we’re doing is saying, hey, that’s wasted—how about we come in, take that natural gas off your hands, get rid of the headache, and monetize that resource?”
This is because some gas is emitted when oil passes through a pipeline out of the ground. The emitted gas is methane, which is environmentally unsafe, especially if it leaks out unfettered. The ‘flare stack’ changes methane to CO2, which, although less harmful to the environment than methane, is still dangerous.
This is where Giga energy comes in; the firm siphons the otherwise wasted resource and uses it to mine bitcoin instead of extracting more for a specific purpose. Lostroh believes he is not polluting the environment. Instead, he is using the wasted energy by changing methane to point to power the mining rig.
Per Lostroh’s explanation, the flame fails to burn efficiently and can reduce to 30% combustion of the gas on a windy day. This releases the rest of the air into the environment.
“It’s just bad for the environment, “So we come in, and we’re able to get 98 percent combustion with our generators,” Lostroh said.
Cheap Power Options to Mine Bitcoin
According to experts, mining Bitcoin with electricity speeds up climate change. One Bitcoin transaction equals enough mining energy to power an average American home for a week.
Therefore, companies look for new sustainable options like burning tires to mine. Additionally, sometimes these cheaper options may entail looking for things to exploit in power systems like hydro, which is what Giga Energy is doing. What Giga is doing also coincides with the White House report on Bitcoin Mining and the environment.
These options would have caused people to calm down, especially about cryptocurrency mining concerning environmental pollution. However, the outrage towards Matt Lostroh’s video shows that people are still not convinced about some cryptocurrency mining techniques.
