Giga Energy, based in Houston, has teamed up with Exa Tech and Phoenix Global Resources to mine bitcoin in Argentina.At the small pilot site, Giga is turning otherwise wasted methane gas into energy that's used to power bitcoin mining rigs.The Argentine province of Mendoza is famous for its vineyards and full-bodied Malbecs. But the popular wine region in the foothills of the Andes mountains is also home to theon the oil fields of East Texas since 2019.
Giga's system involves placing a shipping container full of thousands of bitcoin miners on an oil well, then diverting the natural gas into generators, which convert the gas into electricity that's used to power the miners.
Giga projects the mine is set to reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 180,000 tons per year at the upstream facility. The site is also designed to sell any excess power to the Argentina grid as a way to both generate revenue and curb operational redundancies.It helps that bitcoin isn't a hard sell in a country whose residents have long faced economic instability and wild currency fluctuations.