One year ago Paulo Gonçalves was not a Bitcoiner.
He's was (and is) renewable energy project developer who has spent his career building small hydroelectric dams across the world.
His problem was simple: many of these dams produce power that the grid can't absorb. The energy is wasted. The economics don't work. He'd seen the problem firsthand and had been searching for a solution for over a decade.
A year ago, he attended a @FREEMadeiraOrg event in Portugal, where he discovered Bitcoin mining.
That day changed everything.
Unlike others who fall into the mistake of evaluating Bitcoin mining without understanding energy, grids or renewable generation - he understood all three intimately, and as such was able to immediately see the value that others (including policymakers and regulators) sometimes miss.
Paulo is now evaluating 100s of small hydropowered sites throughout Portugal that are ideal candidates for Bitcoin miners. There are sites that are "too small" or too remote to be of interest to anyone else.
The miners consume what would otherwise be stranded energy. No subsidy required. The dam that didn't make financial sense now does.
This is the pattern critics miss.
They assume Bitcoin miners are Bitcoiners first, working backwards to justify energy use. In reality in the energy sector it happens the other way around.
Kenji Tateiwa in Japan. Paulo Gonçalves in Portugal, Bipin Patel in Sweden are real people solving real energy problems. Different countries, different energy sources, same discovery pattern:
When you know a lot about energy, and do deep research into how to solve energy problems, you arrive at Bitcoin mining.
@DSBatten Thank you very much, Daniel!
You are truly an inspiration to people like me who are beginning to understand the enormous potential of digital energy
Sofia, acho que fui dos poucos que fui para aí na 4a feira (a minha filha mora aí e eu não sabia nada dela). Perante o caos, percebi que tudo depende de vocês e apenas de vocês e daqueles que vos forem ajudar por solidariedade genuína. Sem esquecer as empresas que estão aí a lutar para repor alguma normalidade. O resto do país não percebe o que aconteceu e só quer saber da merda do futebol. Fuck them, a sério. Resistam e resolvam, que eu sei que vai correr bem, vi exemplos incríveis de entreajuda. E é mandar foder todo o especialista lisboeta que aconselha apenas intervenções feita por profissionais.. é mesmo não perceber o que se passa. Abraço