Two young men, Brent Whitehead and Matt Lohstrow, have earned nearly $4 million from Bitcoin miningthrough “flare gas”, which is the gas that appears on the surface of oil wells and companies burn it if they are not close to pipelines to transport gas because of the huge storage costs.
The idea came to the two young men, when they were in the second year at the University of Texas, specifically in the year 2019, as they took advantage of the oil fields in East Texas, about 30 km from the nearest gas lines, and persuaded some companies at the time to use the gas that was burned, to run electric generators It feeds a bitcoin mining rig that is housed in an old container.
And the two young men were not satisfied with this, as they founded Giga Energy Solutions, which has concluded many deals with oil companies in the United States, and has now reached about 20 companies, including 4 public companies listed on the American markets, according to what they mentioned to “CNBC” and reviewed it. Al Arabiya.net”.
The two young men’s idea is supported by research by Crusoe Energy Systems that this process reduces CO2-equivalent emissions by about 63 percent compared to the continuous burning of flare gas.
Whitehead revealed that his company is currently in talks with sovereign wealth funds, and their company is expanding rapidly, as it plans to add 6 new employees this month, in addition to the 11 people currently working for it.
Texas Blockchain Council Chairman Lee Bratcher said: “They are making money for their customers by mining bitcoins from stuck energy sources and solving the environmental challenge with flaring gas at the same time.”
With the price of Bitcoin rising to exceed $20,000 in 2020, their idea seemed more attractive to oil companies, as their revenues exceeded $4 million in 2021, and they are on track to earn more than $20 million by the end of 2022.