Former Norwegian Secretary of State turns Bitcoin Entrepreneur

in LeoFinance3 years ago (edited)

It's not often you see former top politicians make deep dives into the cryptocurrency space. But that only makes the story more interesting.

Ingvil Smines Tybring-Gjedde has held both the occupation of Norway's Minister of Justice and Public Security, as well as the Secretary of Petroleum and Energy, two of the most important functions in Norwegian politics. Today, the former politician representing "The Progress Party" in government begins a new journey with newly registered Earth, Wind & Power AS.

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Former Norwegian Minister Ingvil Smines Tybring-Gjedde turns crypto-mining Entrepreneur.
Image credit: Justis- og beredskapsdepartementet source

So I found this story interesting and worth sharing for a few different reasons. First of all, the thought of a former politician taking the dive into blockchain as an entrepreneur isn't something you hear of every day. Second, the company idea is pretty cool, and one that I think could have similar applications elsewhere. And perhaps finally, when politicians make the whole-hearted entrance, it tells me that we're no longer "early" in this space.

Utilizing excess gas to mine Bitcoin

The idea is perhaps surprisingly simple. The company will use the energy from excess gas burned in Africa and the Middle East to run cryptocurrency mining infrastructure. The excess gas is burned in a process calling "flaring", which you've likely seen in any images from any oil and/or natural gas production site. With the process often being continuously ongoing, it is needless to say that it produces a lot of excess energy.

Gas Flaring Crypto Bitcoin Mining leofinance fredrikaa.jpg


Gas Flaring is done to get rid of excess gas and is mostly a pure waste and additional pollution without adding direct value. Now, it could fuel cryptocurrency mining. Image credit: Glovatskiy/Shutterstock

In fact, flaring is so common and causes so much pollution that it is often the target of criticism from environmentalist organizations and political parties aiming to set goals to reduce it. Thus, a lot of studies have examined the net effect of this activity and it shows just how much energy potential for mining it could provide:

...thousands of gas flares at oil production sites around the globe burn approximately 140 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually, causing more than 300 million tons of CO2 to be emitted to the atmosphere.

Source: The World Bank

If the pollution and waste are going to happen anyway, one might as well use it for something useful. So I like the idea. It also leaves me thinking whether or not this is Tesla's "evil plan" as well as it's running tens of thousands of cars, and later several solar roofs, that will likely have and/or produce excess energy that could be used for mining. Maybe they already have mined some if not most of its Bitcoins that way?

Who knows. What do you think? Where else in the world do you see large amounts of energy that is not utilized or reach an overcapacity?

It sure got my mind thinking.

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If anyone wants to know more about how business like that works, Bitcoin Rapid Fire podcast had a great episode about that (with Greg Foss, 23 Feb episode, convo about https://www.validuspower.com/ starts at about 1 hour 10 min mark).
It is really amazing how they can build mobile power generating stations (powered with flare gas). They use get engines for that. They can switch from BTC mining to an external need in a minute (like Texas situation this year) and provide power.
Solutions like that provide stability for the grid.

Thanks for the recommendation! I will give it a listen later today :).

I'm sure there are concentrated pockets of waste all over the place that can be used by remote value-generating, but power-consuming, equipment. In the old days when these plants were first built, people likely imagined that power-generating resources had to be transported in order to be sold. But Bitcoin mining equipment can work from anywhere that has energy and a sufficient connection. Changes a lot.

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They are mining BTC basically in the oil fields :) using Starlink for connection. First part of the podcast is even better. Greg Foss is a legit dude and had great points about credit default swaps and how you can actually use them to calculate BTC's fair price as insurance against fiat currencies default (p.s. atm of recording that pod BTC's fair price was >100k)

Pretty cool idea. Excess energy should be available in lots of countries, since many powerplants cant actually be turned off, so there is overproduction at night, to keep the capacity high enough to deal with the days energy usage.

Exactly. It seems they figured it all out. Just weird that nobody else thought of this before.

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Another "green" solution you won't hear bitcoin critics talk about. This is really a great idea. There is so much wasted energy in the world, bitcoin could harvest that with it's ability to go to the energy rather than forcing the energy to come to it. Great article!

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Bitcoin critics are desperately holding onto anything possible to prevent or slow down the adoption of something they don't feel comfortable with, don't have a good position in, or fear can consume what they currently own.

People forget that the energy consumption of Bitcoin can be provided by renewable or currently wasted sources. It doesn't need to burn new fuel.

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That's a perfectly fine idea to utilize the heat generated in flaring to run generators powering Bitcoin mining rigs. There are lots of opportunities like that. You could put up wind farms in locations where there is no use for that electricity. The whole renewable energy sector could see a large influx of capital bringing down R&D costs without having to use any tax payer dime on that.

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You just gave me an idea for some new business here in Norway :D

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Wow! I'm happy that I could unwittingly inspire you like that. :D

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I like it - any excess in a process is waste. While I would love to see potentially other uses like energy generation and storage - my guess is BTC mining pays better, and gives additional revenue to the oil fields.

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It probably pays better yes. And also it can create value on the spot without need for transportation.

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Wow. Quite interesting! Killing two birds with one stone. This could really help developing countries to use their extra, unused resources into something useful. A great investment done for the Crypto Future

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I completely agree. It could really help level the playing field and allow countries and individuals in parts of the world that have been the "losers" of the past century join the new rich.

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I saw a few Norwegian billionaires getting into Bitocin recently and with oil prices not being what they used to be its all about moving towards where the best yield is gas flaring for Bitcoin is going to be a popular use of excess energy

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That's right! Both Kjell Inge Røkke and Øystein Spetalen got in. I wouldn't be surprised if Spetalen ends up dumping and moving on, but Røkke is in it to build stuff.

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I think it is an excellent way to use all that wasted energy, because instead of polluting the environment, the waste energy from bitcoin mining can be used for other purposes such as heating a house or a greenhouse, so that energy would not be wasted at all.

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It's nice to know that a whole lot of people are venturing into crypto. It just simply means that I am on the right path. I am so certain that crypto is the fuure

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There is a rumor that Famous Boxer Manny Pacquiao, who is also a politician, invested with his fight earning in BTC while it was still cheap. He will use the money to run as President in 2022. In which case he will be the first elected leader funded by crypto.

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