EP05 Bitcoin podcast with Matt Sandell

Welcome back to the bit by bit podcast. I'm your host max in today's episode. I sit down with Matt Sandel to discuss energy Bitcoin and climate change Right, we don't straighten then so the idea with the podcast is not Just to be Bitcoin related bit by bit can we make some changes to the world?

They're gonna be positive and I think that one of the changes that we can make in the world It's going to be positive is around energy production and that's the industry that you're it What is it that you're doing? We're gonna link it back to Bitcoin anyway. It is a Bitcoin show still But what is it you're doing now?

How do you get into energy? How long have you been doing it and just give us a little bit of a backstory on what you've been doing? Yeah, sure Matt Sandel good friend of Max very interested in what you do with Bitcoin and I suppose I've tried to explore it myself as as quite a you know an average

Person with an interest in what might happen in the future what I do for a living I've been working in energy pretty much since I left university. I did stumble into it So I actually taught a guy's kids how to swim which eventually led into the energy industry and in particular

It was solar right at the beginning. It was largely government subsidy led to it. We're going back to 2010 now So they called the feed-in tariff which you got paid a Price per kilowatt produced which made your investment in those solar panels more attractive because at one point people were probably

getting 25% IRR that's too much the idea was you pump prime an industry to reduce the cost up to the point where you get what we call grid parity so that means you could buy your solar and produce electric from it that would be cheaper than you could just directly buy it from the grid with the obvious added benefits of

being environmentally friendly and I did actually I did that for a good five years with a Business that was one of the what was the fastest growing company in the UK for three years running and it was very Successful, but it was you couldn't hide from it was built on subsidies I didn't quite wash its face when I left that business

I worked for myself in critical power in for structure So the examples of that would be hospitals and data centers and the way I think of it is Lights always on you cannot go to a point where there's no power in that building. Okay. Yeah, and so I think at that point

I became more technology aware and and what this is all needed for and used for I learn a bit about where vast amounts of our power hunger as Consumers it's being used and I love the phrase and internet minute because when you type that in onto Google You're just aware of how much power we all use that's currently stored in the cloud

So everyone's on their smartphone these days. I think they're very unaware of the power usage Massive yeah some of the data centers you mean yeah, so we a gmail or snapchat YouTube videos Facebook you haven't got a server in your house anymore now and it you know the cloud is

masses and masses of servers stored in a data center and they use phenomenal amounts of power Yeah, and they are lights always on generally. I think the public are not aware of that No, would no one really when you say the cloud

I think a lot of people do think whereas this sort of magical thing certainly don't think oh, it's a data center Which is huge and obviously it's stored just on another computer. Yeah, they don't think that It's just that's massive the reality is they can buy a lot of computers

And it's cheaper than individuals buying their computers to store what they need And that gives you access to everything that you use your smartphone for all your data People are completely unaware and they are whopping great buildings So what could you tell me about was it in Wales?

You'd had one that was just massive one of the biggest ones in Europe. Wasn't it say that there are and I can't actually talk about No, that's fine. Yeah, but one of the biggest ones in Europe is is in Wales it certainly was at the time and you know one of the reasons for that is is cost-saving and actually

That's a great example without going into specifics But they are driven by very clean power and that instance is tidal. So okay, you know I'm not an expert in tidal power whatsoever But what I do know is they are able to procure that energy

Low costs so nine years at environmentally friendly, but it works a lot from a financial perspective And the reason they're able to do that in that instance is their location So yeah, they are next to the facility

Therefore they can buy that energy in it and they don't necessarily have to pay massive charges to transmit it across our grid infrastructure So they've located with that in mind or it was just by happy coincidence or are you Yeah, I mean there would have been many reasons why they chose that site

I have no doubt the ongoing cost of the power which probably for a data center Represents like 80% of all their costs right will be on power It doesn't take many people to run a data center So you have just a few engineers knocking about and then what does something like that in terms of megawatts or gigawatts away?

But what would they consume phenomenal amounts? So really not that particular one But I've been looking at a more standard data center fairly recently and that uses 30 gigawatt hours and in terms of like so that's really and for people like me and listeners like what is that equivalent to?

Because it's obviously we don't really deal with those sort of numbers. It's like kilowatt hours or yeah, so Trying to think how I could I mean the best way to compare that that would be the size of a medium sized councils entire portfolio Wow, probably bigger than a medium sized council So it's not quite a city council

But you're talking a council with all their public buildings all their schools all their street lighting and that is kind of equivalent to one average size data center, okay in terms of houses. I'm sure we can look up the stats and you can refer back to

How many houses per annum, but yeah, I mean you're probably talking 15,000 houses something like that. Okay. Yeah, that's bad So it's like 10 to 15,000 houses. Yeah. Yeah, okay, so that's one sort of that's a medium sized data That's a very average site. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that's enormous

And there are bunches of these and it's a growing industry And it's a great industry because of all that connectivity and what we actually use it for but you can't hide from the fact that You know, the reason I stopped working in it, although I'm kind of entering into it but from a different perspective now

Is because all of these are backed up by diesel generator sets. Right. So these are big diesel engines Yeah, that could keep those sites running for In theory and indefinite period of time in the instance that the grid fails. So the code fails

They have a UPS system, which runs the site for maybe 10 or 15 minutes. Okay, and that allows these diesel generators to start And they will provide that data sensor with Electricity to keep it running because they want the well, they can't have a down time

They can't have the down time. Yeah, and it's the same on hospitals and other critical pieces of infrastructure And you know, there's a very genuine reason why that is for me I wanted to be able to be a part of something that could drive not only our advances in technology, but

Keep this planet in a place where I'll be proud to hand it over to my son hence moving proud new proud daddy here Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, definitely and it does. How are you now? He's three months old and three months old Yeah, so that you know, it gives you another i'd moved anyway back into

Renewable power generation and storage before my son was born, but it definitely adds to it It doesn't make you think what what are we giving back to these people and we're people that can control it It's our generation now. It's not as nobody else. You know, if we're going to do this in the next 10 years

Then it's us. It's nowhere else to look. Yeah, it has to be and we have to sort of step up and take some responsibility here You know, make some changes because otherwise Yeah, you're gonna pass a planet on and we can't do that really. Yeah, I mean Well, I know this is Bitcoin

Related and I don't know how much we want to go into that, but I mean it's just talk freely about it Bitcoin Is is about creating for me a level playing field and something that's certain that you can't fiddle with from any perspective And in the same way, I think Power in that sustain a bit sustainably is really important

And yeah, I completely agree, you know, this whole climate change Emergency that we're in that you know profiles been raised massively in the last 18 months two years it was on every Political parties manifesting. Yeah, you've got extinction rebellion. No business once then when they're doorstep. No

And this is driven by people that will no longer accept Businesses that I'll damage in our environment But like you said so many of these businesses are damaging the environment, but we rely on them so heavily So it's it's all well and good to say oh, well, you know, we're not we're not gonna use data sensors

It's like good luck. Yeah, oh, well, just don't drive cars anymore. Again. Good luck You have there has to be some sort of compromise the article that I wrote and sent to you Recently about bitcoin talking about all the people who are writing about it have just done the math wrong It's not about energy

Consumption it's about energy production So it doesn't matter if you're using energy if it's been produced in a sustainable way But if we're just continuing to burn fossil fuels, we can't continue to do that It's just stupid especially when it seems from what you've told me the technology is there now

Yeah, well that's it. So I guess the other thing that really helped me go back into Renewables is the fact that there are no subsidies now. There's no help free market effectively There's no sort of yeah again. No one dabbling and messing around. Yeah, it's literally what you can

Build an asset for to generate power. Yeah, and the price you can sell that power out Which is completely led by the price that people are willing to pay for it And people being in this case businesses or in theory it could be Home owners as well like you can buy genuine renewable electricity

And it in a lot of instances particularly for commercial now It's cheaper than buying your power direct from the grid. Really? Yeah, and it's been the case in the us For some time that solar particularly around places like Vegas there are big hotels and casinos that buy all of their power from renewables and had to pay

Better. Yeah, and they had to pay hefty fees to get out of those existing contracts as well And it's still made financial sense. Wow. And although I'm More in the solar and battery storage part of it, you know, it's not the only Renewable form of of energy that is cheaper. There are

Hydro facilities particularly in like Washington state, right? Yeah, the cost of energy there It's really cheap and that's driven by these big hydro facilities I've already mentioned tidal power, but the one I'm particularly interested in is solar and storage and

You know, it's not only you can you produce it for cheaper, but when you combine that with storage You can also sell that power when it's needed so For a business like the one on working for that Allows you to increase the value of the power you make the unfortunate thing about just solar is it it tends to produce

Electricity when the sun's at its highest and it's a clear date Which is whenever the other solar asset produces the most amount of electricity But if you've got that coupled with battery storage You can charge those batteries and release the power into the grid when it's most needed which

Yeah, certainly in the uk's as people are waking up maybe seven to nine a.m And then again in the evening there's a peak sometime between four and seven p.m Or maybe slightly later six to eight p.m Those are two key times to be able to sell power and those batteries as far as I understand have become

Much more efficient fairly recently. It's it seems to be moving. Yeah, definitely in the right direction I think the first battery Container that I was involved with was like a 250 kilowatt heat unit and that was in a standard 21st shipping container Yeah, and that would have been 2012

Now we're we're using okay 40 foot containers, but you can get three megawatt hours out of every single one so That's like so 250 to Yeah, it's like more than 10 times In just double the space. Yeah So so the actual efficiency is at least five times where it was in 2012 and coupled out with the

The price point probably fallen like 80 over the last couple of years as well. That's pretty impressive Yeah, there is also competition in the management of those so You have to be flexible. You have to be able to react to the grid needs Really quickly what less than a second

Right. So from charging to this charging and we're talking about masses amount of power So it takes a lot of software and algorithms to be able to get to that point You wouldn't be able to do that manually and it's it's there people are are able to deliver that Cost effectively and I think businesses want it because most I think

Certainly when in the financial stack up Most people want to do the right thing as well So if they can make the financial stack up and it's good for the environment, then it works Most people yeah, like you say most people

Want to do good, but it has to stack up financially as well because a lot of these businesses are working on such low margins That if you suddenly say oh well, it's 30% more. They're like well I have to let staff go then or I just can't run and you know and that's the argument for a lot of these things

It's like oh well. We have to we have to stop climate change now by any means and it's like Yeah, we used to have third world countries that are still developing Don't expect them to give a shit about the climber when they're trying to feed their family because that's ridiculous

You're gonna put a roof over your head feed your family get yourself sorted first And then you actually have time to think about the environment around you and until that point No one gives a fuck. They just don't no one cares and I wouldn't and you wouldn't You just want to look after your family first. So yeah family first

It's impossible for them to look beyond that boundary And you can't blame them like we've had the luxury of being able to go for our industrial revolution And we burn coal like there was no tomorrow together Who used to say it's within our right to it's not tell someone else to do it differently

It's not what we can do is provide the tools for them to do it in a different way Yeah, and if we can sounds like you're doing so that's where I'd like to go Like we're definitely doing that locally Like so I can't claim to be doing that across the globe But certainly I've no doubt

That will be an evolution of what is happening and you know If you can get it right in your own backyard and that puts you in a better position to Go and help someone else do that and yeah, and you know I'd certainly would only expect them to do it on the same basis that businesses here are doing And that is because

Financially it makes sense for them. Yeah, you know, that is the way the world goes around Like you can't get away from it So if you play that game and you can make it work financially Then people will do the right thing. Yeah, and I I genuinely believe that we're there now with renewables

The one area that still needs improvement is I would describe renewable power as reliable power Not quite sure that it's critical power. Yeah, particularly wind and solar So explain the difference So it's reliable In that you know that you'll be able to generate power you can predict when that power will be

Yeah, really accurately especially with the time of year and weather patterns and wind speeds It's a known quantity these technologies have been installed for a long time batteries do help you go one other step But critical power is can you give my site 10 megawatt peak of power 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year?

Okay, and give and convince me that I do not need my diesel generator set backups. I say and I'll check about for things like hospitals and days. Absolutely. Yeah for that final bit and and that's the holy grail You know, so what's what's stopping that?

What is it the fact that the batteries can't store enough to guarantee? The so it's actually quite to do that. Is it possible? Yes But you would have to massively oversize every system so commercially it just wouldn't work anymore because you'd be buying so much more kit than

You actually need that you wouldn't be able to sell these people the power at a cost effective price. Okay so the the only thing that's stopping this from happening As far as I can see it correct me if I'm wrong is that you will be over producing energy

Which you will not have the ability to sell because there's not the demand for it currently Right now on an individual basis in an ideal world if everybody worked together and there was you know energy sharing You could get there, but that's all theoretical. Okay. So If we were to say take um take a hospital

You want to convince them to get rid of their diesel generator and they're saying that can't do it because i've got to buy What 30 percent more kit 40 percent more kit? What's what sort of figures are we talking? So Good question. Just roughly So You have to let's do solar, which is the one I know you know about

So you would have to take into account like if we're talking about the UK a UK winter Much shorter days less sunshine or irradiation So the yield you get from that site is reduced So you would have to build the system if it was just solar You would have to build and let's say it was a 10 megawatt peak data center

You'd have to size the site so that on the coldest darkest winter day You would be able to still produce enough electric for the data center Yeah, and we're talking about if it was a private wire into that data center And what and and so if you take the worst day Compared to the average day half as much like what's it with solar?

Is it is it is it house? Is it do you still get the solar through the clouds or it has to be direct sunlight? You still get? No, you still get yeah You can even so we use bifacial panels, which means they can Generate electric on the front and the back of the panel and that comes from something called the albedo effect

Which is and it does sound very posh And if i'm holding my hand up, I didn't know what it meant in the middle of last year But right it's effectively how light reflects from the ground and the The you know if you've ever been skiing maybe you'll know what it's like when light is the the snow

Yeah, and and you have to wear goggles or glasses or something. Yeah, and equally when you've been on the water like light reflects So that is the albedo effect But um the uplift isn't massive, but it you know in a it could be like 20 Wow, just just read that In the uk what how many hours of sun do we get on the longest day?

Probably like 12 hours maybe about probably yeah, so on the worst day is it's from like 8 in the morning and it's gone by about 10 to 4 so right like So we're talking about half Well, and then you've got a take-in to account that even on the longest day What do you do between 10 p.m. And 6 in the morning is not generating anything

So you presumably have some form of battery you would yeah, so they're anyway, so what's happened Recently is battery storage is it now helps and you can charge the batteries But the way you'd actually do it is by having multiple assets and using our grid so solar and wind and batteries

Collectively right yeah, but in isolation they don't work So across the grid they work and you have to think when you're going to charge your batteries when you're going to discharge it When you're going to take power directly from the solar when you're going to take power directly from the wind

And how you transmit that energy across the grid infrastructure because you can't now Privately wire all of this to one facility and you lose energy as you transmit it through wires anyway a percentage don't you?

I'm not an electrical engineer, but yeah A percentage yeah, and you do with batteries as well. So what I'm really getting at here And this is one of the things I wrote in the article is that my argument with Bitcoin and energy is not only are Forbes and

Everybody who's writing this sort of negative media about the consumption of Bitcoin mining energy usage Not only are they wrong in terms of that it's inefficient But I think they're so wrong that they're actually missing the point that this could help in these sorts of situations and the reason I think it could help

Certainly abroad and I'm thinking maybe here in the same situation where we're talking about call it a hospital And we're saying that on the sunniest day you're going to have 12 hours of sunlight and then on a shitty day You're going to have just say it's half of that you have six hours

So you're going to need to have double the amount of solar panels or wind or whatever you're using Let's just say solar which obviously you have to then outlay For those costs and then if you're over producing for most of the year or half of the year

Then you need to sell that energy and there's not necessarily going to be the demand for that energy depending on your location Especially if you're going to be in the middle of nowhere in a data center And there's not then the infrastructure to pump that out or have someone buy that from you

In that case you'd have to then buy more batteries that are really expensive and lose Energy over time. I don't know what percentage but they lose energy over time and they're expensive to buy So you wouldn't do it But what if you could guarantee that you can sell that energy no matter where you are in the world even if you're

Absolutely that there's no one around you for a hundred miles You can guarantee you can sell that energy and that energy can run a financial system that can Run the entire world. What happens then is that you can guarantee you can sell the energy Which means you can pay off your initial investment

Much much quicker and you can get rid of that diesel generator Much quicker. I don't see the downside to it. So I see where you're coming from we can Sell the energy but in like relaying it to to Bitcoin I think it's you're right the people that have assessed how much energy does it use?

Probably don't want it to be a good thing. They don't know what so The question becomes are you happy with energy being used on specific functions? And if one of those is to create a fair financial system, well, then that's a very good cause isn't it?

so and That is completely irrespective of how much energy is used like do we think it's a great use of energy for us to post pictures of our dinner On you know on instagram to be kept on the server for the next 20 years

Yeah for somebody to look up and if you're comparing the two then which is the like even if one used a lot more energy than the other It becomes down to what's useful for people and or christmas lights or Yeah, christmas lights. Yeah, I think if you say to someone that's a waste whatever the energy is being used for

It's subjective. It's subjective. Yeah. Yeah, and if you're gonna then say, oh, you can't do that then you're a dictator. Yeah so Energy usage has to be a free and open market if you're prepared to pay for the energy

You can use it however you want if you want to watch the Kardashians or you want to leave your hoover running all day every day Then it's a bit stupid, but you can do that so it comes down to energy production For these sort of places where you don't have the infrastructure like a lot of parts of china for example

Where they don't have the infrastructure to sell that energy they have to build these solar units Ready for the demand they're gonna have in 10 years not for today and then they're over producing So if someone's gonna step in and say well you can't sell to anyone else because there's no one else there

But we'll buy it from you because we want to run these application specific computers We can take them anywhere. All we need is a satellite to send the transactions Which so you can do it from anywhere. Surely that is going to Increase the speed at which people can pay off their initial investment

Which means it's going to speed up the amount of people who are going to renewables. Yeah, I mean for us when we when we want to Make a unit knowing who's going to buy the power is a massive part of it and It's a cornerstone in a lot of ways of the business cases known as someone who wants to buy power

The convenient thing is there are many people that want to buy power. So we're not in a place yet I think where we're over producing power, but In the UK not in the UK maybe elsewhere But regard even in the UK though powered a month

We'll no doubt increase with our electric vehicle infrastructure and the fact that more people will be more reliant on Smartphones and data. It's a clear pattern, isn't it? We're always using more energy. Yeah, just we always will Well, it was actually a peak kind of back in the year 2000 and it's dropped

But there's the reality is people don't speak about this that much, but there's just more of us There are always because more and more people all the time And I think we've gone through like an evolution of efficiency and energy efficiency Which has helped drop demand maybe demand per person, but now there's just more of us

And you know, we are starting to do things which are pretty power hungry like all the use of smartphones and data and You know, we're moving away from internal combustion engines. Hopefully which is a good thing for the environment

But does mean that that electric has got to come from somewhere and my personal belief is that that has to be Created with renewable energy and shouldn't be a great Another thing that just contributes to the downfall of our environment and and that's you know

That's something I fundamentally believe in and why I want to work in the industry that I work in It would be nice to see I mean, I don't think that's the thing is that like I think everyone agrees And I do think that apart from obviously the oil companies Well, I think they recognize it if you look at a lot of the

Press that those big companies put out and you know, whether you believe they're actually doing it or trying to say they're doing the right thing Whatever, but they're aware that the consumer is now Becoming more educated about what we're doing and and you know, that's just in the energy Game, but I do think

for similar reasons and it is about kind of fair and openness and Creating a level playing field and a sustainable Planet that is where Bitcoin does have some similarities and like we said The criticism maybe about its power usage is probably hasn't been calculated In a way that it is a true apples raffles comparison to other

Financial uses because they also are on banks with a lot heavy power use and they're much bigger So much bigger, but it's you it comes down to a perception of is it being used for something that's Useful. I think yeah, that's the thing and and because it's such a fringe

Hardly anyone uses it at the moment and what they've done is they've said all right Well, they can do seven transactions per second now and visa does whatever 10,000 transactions a second or something like that and what they've done is said well if we extrapolate that how

So seven transactions a second they're using this much electricity to secure the network Well, if it's seven, let's just extrapolate that out to 10,000 right. They're going to use all the energy of the world Which is just wrong. It's not how these systems scale

The difference is we're going to be using second layer solutions to sit on top of the network And we have enough security now to withstand Nation-state attacks. It's the most secure network in the world even if it stays as it is It's more secure than any network in the world

And it's being attacked all the time. No one's managed to hack it So we don't need any more security really we will continue to have more security anyway but With what we have now once we have these second layer solutions in place We can replace visa and the entire banking system So no more armored vehicles no more data centers

No more banks with tellers and lights and all the stuff that we have now can be replaced by bitcoin So the calculation is just wrong and that's why i've written this article That's why i'm banging on about this stuff because I believe that Not only is it better and fairer, but it's going to be infinitely better for the environment

Once everyone uses it, but at the moment no one's using it So it's not efficient on a per person basis if that makes sense Yeah, it's still in its absolute infancy, isn't it? Yeah Well, how many years are we into it now 11 and how old is the fiat system?

Well Really, it's 1971 in its current form So that's at the point where it was no longer linked to the value of gold Yeah, right and and the average fiat currency lasts i think 22 years or something like that before it hyperinflates and collapses they always do like there's never been One fiat currency that hasn't ended that way

But we believe that we're in exception We believe that our the pound would just survive forever and the dollar will survive forever Which is wrong It can't because the way that it's been set up is that the incentives are there for them to print more money Because it's just the easiest option. It's easier than taxing people

It's easier than actually ramping up production or doing things more efficiently It's just like oh, well, we're just print more money It happens to the Romans and it will come but it would just be nice If we could avoid it in the same way with climate change, it's like

It'd be nice if we can just be a bit more forward thinking and rather than just saying oh, we're going to get a new party in or Someone in to say oh, well, we're going to be in for four years These are the changes we're going to make and then the next people come in and they change all of that just to say

Fuck all that. Let's just think globally and think like what can we do to make the world a better place and work together as as humans rather than England and this and that and all these borders and divides and it's just it's all nonsense at the end of the day because we will share the same planet we do and

It's an unfortunate thing, but I think it is human nature to Not do anything about problems until you've got no choice Until you're in like survival mode. You don't learn how to do something differently and it's true You know a person might be able to overcome a problem But when you're talking about six or seven billion people as a whole

How do they collectively do that? It's a really tricky one and certainly on the climate change side of things I think from the initial Research when everyone talks about keeping global warming down to one and a half degrees They don't really talk about the fact that we're already at 1.1 degrees above that starting point

So we've got less than 10 years now if we're going to do this by 2030 Which is what most scientists recognizes the Point of almost like no return and we've only got 0.9 degrees to play with that's not a lot No, and it's only now

It seems like people are waking up to the fact that we really have got to do something about this because it's not going to be Our great-grandchildren are going to feel the effect it's our children Yeah, or even now or even us you and you have to look at Australia in the last few weeks

So it's devastating it's horrendous. I hate watching the news at the moment. It gets me the worst I sound horrible like a horrible person here Obviously, I find it sad that about the humans But it's the animals like I don't care as much about the humans because I'm like well

We did this to them. Yeah, and I look at like this little koala is all on fire. So when I look it out I'm just like that is just I just can't watch it. I just think this is So that the latest of red and I don't know how they quite come to these numbers

But is that it's a billion animals like the minute so they've been wiped out and there's is a kangaroo island They've got like two unique species that they think are quite likely to be extinct now Um, they're so sad and we are in a mass extinction something like 60% of all

Um wildlife has gone in the last 40 years and they're not doing it. It's literally it's just us just drilling for oil and just burning a load of It was just carbon basically and just causing all this problems and and really like a lot of it is just we're making shit

We've got this consumerist society where we're just making a load of plastic Useless shit that no one really needs No one like it's not really improving anyone's lives and nothing's built to last it seems anymore I think it's just like right single use. Okay, that will last you a year Buying cheap tatty shit and then those of all crap

Yeah, and then it just gets thrown in the ocean and and also like we you know Even in this and I didn't really think about it at the time But we spoke about the fact that maybe we're making renewable power in the uk And you know what they're doing in developing countries

But you know they're still burning coal and won't do anything unless it unless we kind of give it to them or make it cheap Yeah, or or something, but it has to be insensitive to do it. Yeah, but actually if you're talking about the real waste is It's us with our disposable

Crack like you said because in a lot of these countries. I can't afford to throw away things they reuse repair and yeah and and properly recycle yeah and Yeah, I mean the one good so you know, I haven't wanted to be critical for data sent their power hungry

Maybe I don't like how they get their power, but the purpose they serve is is is amazing because what it is Is it it's kind of allowing? Average people to be educated about all sorts of things and make their own mind up about information because of the internet you mean

Yeah, because it's amazing. Yeah, and so I do you know and people can access the internet in Any country now almost and there's a nearly a billion internet users in China. I think it is now and it's growing fast Yeah, with the with as these smartphones get cheaper and cheaper

And I think that's a great thing because actually I do believe that wherever you are you'll Want to do something about climate change and keeping this planet is you know, we've only got one of them Anyway, you can't go anywhere else. Well, we might do but but let's let's say that we can't even if we could

Yeah, you'd like to look after your original home. Yeah, for sure. I'd rather live. I don't want to live on Mars No, it scares the life out. Why do you want it like? Yeah, this this planet's unreal. Yeah, it's got it's got some problems They're mainly things that we've created

Yeah, the actual the like nature is unbelievable and I do think that I still think we can do it You know, everyone does Pain a horrible story, but actually there are some good things happening like, you know, I think as a whole we can still Stop this we can but it comes down to incentives always. Yeah, and you know, like

Renewable power is at a price point where financially it works. There's no reason not to do it now. So From from my perspective the things that's that are stopping these kind of things are It's good for someone like me and good for someone like you and good for most people on the planet

And we're like look obviously if it makes financial sense, let's go renewable Let's not use any oil or whatever else anymore But some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world It's not good for them. It's not the incentives are not aligned and they are currently making the decisions

so they're going to make those decisions selfishly and They can make those decisions because they hold all the power because they hold all the money So one of my main arguments with bitcoin is it's a way that you can say to them not even say something you can just take their power from them because

If they don't hold the money, they're not in control anymore And if we're agreeing that say I don't know 85 90 percent of people Are going to say all right. Let's save the planet And you have maybe 1 percent or half a percent or a quarter of a percent of people who are like fuck the planet I'm making so much money

I don't give a shit it and I just want to be selfish This is the only way you can take that from them Because you can protest all you like and you know and and all of these protests are brilliant And that they're they're trying their best to do something In the day they're asking for permission. They're saying we want change

Governments, can you please change and the governments go? Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right like you would have a little child Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll do that and you tell them yeah, okay Then you don't mean it and they don't mean it and they won't change not fast enough

So if you want to actually protest what you do is you say i'm not using your system anymore I do not agree with what you're doing. I do not agree with your practices So i'm not using anymore if everyone did that rather than taking say 30 40 50 100 years to get some change we can do it in a year. So what in your opinion is stopping

Everybody doing that with Bitcoin education. Yeah, it's that simple. It's education No one understands it all the media is very negative obviously because the media is controlled by the people who are that Not point not 1% who the incentives don't align with them because they hold the power

And once you're that powerful the only thing you care about is keeping hold of your power Power becomes the main goal. There's a quote power corrupts Absolute power corrupts absolutely and that's what happens over and over again You know you you see it and the way that we can take that away is to take the money

I would rather it be that we control the money So we say right this is what we want from you and we want to have an open ledger of exactly where you're spending our taxes and why And if you fuck them out, we take your money from you Whereas at the moment it's completely the other way around it's like we will take your taxes by force

You will use our money by force and We will spend it on what we want and if you don't like it in four years you can vote for the other guy who's the same guy so I just think that Like I can take the most recent vote where I just had no confidence in any option Because now I'm sure I'm not the only person

So I had to vote but and that's just a personal belief that I just I felt like None of the options were really what I wanted to see and Will we deliver who knows and it but I think Technologically, I know we're at a place where we could make decisions much quicker

Um, so that you know that we should just change the way we do. I'd love to see that because why couldn't we go to a Case by case by even if it was on like 10 things a year that are important to a country I'm pretty sure we've got the technology to do that

We definitely have that. I mean that that is literally what this technology is is an open ledger viewable by everyone That anyone can vote on and you can't manipulate it or hide the truth from it. So that's what we've got I don't think we'd want to go for a full like

Everything in parliament being on night. It just wouldn't but major stuff like You know, how long have we messed around with on Brexit now that 2017 and it's just ridiculous how if people thought all those people's focus had have been on the NHS or Policing or crime or yeah, you know the one that's close to my heart

Which is our route to carbon net zero. Yeah, could we have achieved a lot more in that 100% and more efficiently? Yeah, and I think that if you could have gone to an open ledger and given people the means to vote on something like that then Which kind of we did but nothing but they're just a bunch of clowns. It's embarrassing

They are all the same people and not like you vote for something and then you go. Oh, well, that's definitely happening Be like I vote for that, but there's a strong chance it won't happen, but it may be might possibly but probably not Yeah, and you might agree with 20% of what this party says and 70% of what this one says and

50% of what this one says, but you can't Taylor make it to actually be like, look, this is the way I want to see the world That's how I want it. So I'll vote for that. There's not that option And the only way to do that really is far as I can see is you have

Either every single person votes on every single thing, which is ridiculous. We can't do it What I would like to see is we'd say right we have say 40 different categories and like say one of them's energy I don't really know enough about energy to make a

Know a little bit, but I don't know enough. So I would then say all right when it comes to energy I'll ask matt So I have someone that I personally trust who understands about energy. So I'll say right matt What do I vote for out of these things? And then if it comes to something to do with finance

I might say ask someone else and if so you'd have not everyone would ask, you know Have to vote on every single thing. They would just have an expert that they trust who would make that decision And then that's a really decentralized way of making Decisions and it would be a much much more efficient

It cuts out the way that corruption works now, which is like all the decisions are made by a couple of people and None of the finance is ever shown and when it is shown all of it is manipulated anyway So they can easily just Everything is a backhand that everything is made in a way that is very very selfish and this completely cuts it out

And we're always the criminals. We're always the ones It's like they want to see every transaction. They want to see everything about us They want to have all of our information. We have none of theirs. Why?

It doesn't make any sense But we didn't have the technology to do that until 11 years ago And today Still no one understands it. So it in my opinion just comes down to Educating people on it, which takes quite a long time

And trying to make it more accessible is the other thing because anything that's built on bitcoin is done because it's open-source software It's done for free So everyone who's developing on it now, they're not getting paid. There's no government funding

In fact, there's the there's the reverse of that where everyone's scared because they think they're going to get in trouble And there's all of this fear and uncertainty being spread whereas if they said, right This is more efficient than our banking system by all orders of magnitude

It's never been hacked. We have what was it the other day? What was the one? Literally I turned on the news for like a one minute the other day travel x got hit every single bit Of customer data they're being held at ransom and it will be for bitcoin because they know that That's the best form of money. So the hackers are saying, right

We're going to sell all of this information that we've stolen from you of all of your customers I'm going to sell it on the darknet unless you pay us. That's how secure their systems are and it's not just them Every year they're just Facebook got done

Every single military officer in the whole of the United States and if like to the highest levels All of that's been hacked. You can't do it with bitcoin like Is not by chance that one of the fastest growing industries is cyber secure

Is it and this again like so if you took all of the money that they're having to pay out for these sort of things All of the money that they're doing for know your customer and anti money laundering and all that sort of stuff And all the data centers they have to run to try and stop it

Unsuccessfully and you switched across to bitcoin. It's more efficient. It's more fair for everybody It means that we'd have a proper democracy because at the moment we say that we live in a democracy and it's better than dictatorship, but it's not a true democracy because it's it's a sort of semi democracy

It's like you can choose something that sort of aligns ish to what you want But not really and they don't have to do it. That's not really a democracy Whereas now we can actually have a true democracy They put all that funding towards bitcoin

It would be much much easier to use at the moment. It's a little bit clunky and it's a little bit of a pain in the arse and to wrap your head around it takes some time and Yeah, the user interfaces aren't as slick as like Stat like a like a normal banking application. It's not quite there

But it will be with or without the funding move you have the funding would be there now But there's I mean bitcoin's got quite a lot. I mean, what's the total worth of bitcoin? So that's tiny It's like a hundred billion. Yeah, ish drop in the ocean

I mean you think of some of these big like whale alert purchases or any of these governments Yeah, what do you think? I listened to an interview the other day for someone in Venezuela And they had to flee Venezuela because they got their doors knocked in

They were running a mining operation over there. So a lot of Venezuelans are doing that Because basically they're nothing and their money's worth nothing, but their energy is subsidized So their energy is basically free So is it medura is over there? I have to put it in the show notes if I'm wrong, but I think medura

Anyway, they um what was happening is they're sending their police services, which are basically like a privatized police for These dictators and then they're taking all of this mining equipment stealing all of their bitcoin And they're also black mailing people and saying can you go out and buy this bitcoin for me?

And then they're holding it as their strategic reserves and North Korea are doing the same with their hackers So they're taking bitcoin So You've got these governments that are having it as part of their strategic reserves because why wouldn't you because it's a hedge against a traditional

System and these are certainly where we live. These are all fairly negative examples as well They are but the other way to look at it is like say like a ram they're sanctioned If they want to send a transaction I'm talking about either the people there or the governments there who want to send a transaction

They're sanctioned. They cannot send their cut off from the banking system So they can send a bitcoin transaction and all can stop them and all of these countries that are sanctioned It's like these sanctions don't mean anything anymore to them if they really want to get a transaction through

They just do it and no one can stop it. So they're obviously going to be buying it I'd be shocked if Our governments aren't doing it as well But the problem is if they admit if they say oh, we're buying it for our strategic reserves They're buying gold by the way the amount of gold purchase from all the governments around the world is

Absolutely flying since 2008 and what that tells you is They don't trust the system that they're making us use Fundamentally they no matter what the system is It's in the government's interest to make us believe the the one that we use is the right one

You know, it's really a brand isn't it like a dollar is a brand. It's no different to a can of coca-cola No And the reason people use it is because it's widely accepted and everyone knows that what the value of a dollar is Or be it maybe not everyone knows that it's not actually backed by anything like almost no one knows that

And so that's the the difference for bitcoin is the brand as far as crypto goes is strong But it's not strong compared to the no other end things and and until it's like the coca-cola of of money But if it was then I see Absolutely how it can can work and I think that

All of those examples you gave there that in our culture are seen as potentially quite negative The reason that in each of those cases they they are or could be using bitcoin is because they need to survive the choice Yeah, they've got no choice than it

And the fact it kind of demonstrates that it can't be controlled by a central government and that In a way does level the playing field, but it actually doesn't at the minute it's perceived as being bad Because not everybody's doing it if everybody's was doing it then

I'd be shocked if we're not we'll just keep it quiet because the minute that they admit this is a better system They can't print money anymore Imagine if you could do that like if right now like we finished this interview you can go home and you can

Literally go on your computer and you can type any number you want and you can just create that amount of money out of thin air and you can lend it to your friends at zero percent And it's free and by creating that you are effectively taking it out of the pockets of everyone else in your country

Because the value of their currency goes down every time you do it And you have that power and you can just go oh, I'm gonna go home and just print 100 million Would you want to give it up?

From a personal perspective you wouldn't know No, and that's where they are. They're like we don't want to give up this power like we don't want to We don't want to have to actually fund things and actually create value like real value

We want to just be able to just take money from everybody else put it into our pockets like we've been doing since 1970s And and no one's waking up to it yet. So they're they're going to do it as long as they can but i'm pretty sure they'll be having summers of strategic reserve because

Although they don't really understand this in lots of ways you don't run countries like the United States and England and Great Britain without having at least a couple of people who are Reasonably intelligent who can work this out and go. It's probably worth us having something

You'd kind of hope say well, yeah, I'm pretty I'm pretty sure that someone will I want that I suppose it's interesting and I went probably never find out the answer until it's happened and too late but to know when they think that will happen that that's the

I do think it's a case of when like you said, there's no, you know, what's the average life of a fiat currencies like 22 years Well, yeah, if if it's been on the dollar since the 70s then it's where it's well We all it's well be on to see but we've never we've never done what we're doing now the experiment they're playing now

We've never done we've never had this monetary expansion like we've had we've never had Unbacked currency and we've never had these levels there and we've never gone to negative yielding bonds or have Negative rates, which is what's coming now. So like you're gonna start paying to put money into the bank

That's already happening in Denmark. Yeah, and get a negative Interest mortgage. Yeah, and the reason that is But people from other countries investing just knowing that their money's safe somewhere Even if it's worth slightly less is You know, de-risk's they're overall pot and they know that they're money

And they've still got access and they have to keep printing Because they have to keep these assets inflated and they have to keep trying to pay back their debt It's like they've got credit cards on top of credit cards on top of credit cards on top of credit That's where we're at now

If I saw one of my mates do that and they were like, oh, yeah, I've got 12 credit cards and I'm like, right Well, how are you paying them off? Oh, well, I've got another credit card are you mental?

But we're allowing our governments to do it. Yeah, that's fine. They know what they're doing They only fuck it up every 10 years and we see a massive crash Yeah, and we haven't had a really bad one since like the 20s But it's coming and this is the little liferoft and I don't think anyone's going to jump till

We have our next big recession And until people are really in trouble Like you said like people won't change until they have to when they have to they're going to start learning about this But it's sad because doesn't have to be that way like rather than having like a

Smooth transition where everyone goes, okay, it's a better system. Let's just think logically Let's move to this as we should with renewable energy Let's just be logical and okay, it might be a little bit rocky at the start But we know it's for the best rather than do that. They're just going to wait until it's too late

We can have serious problems and then everyone's going to then jump onto it We're going to see a huge jump in price and everyone who's then Trying to play catch up. They're losing more and more of their purchasing power And a few people would do really really well, but most people are going to lose now Yeah, I mean look, I

I would love to buy more Bitcoin and the reality is that I don't buy more than I already do because In my mind, I can't afford to do it and yeah, and I probably accept that I'll have some But I'd like to buy more because I feel like at some point and I can't put a number on it I feel like it'll be worth significantly more than it is

Now, yeah But I suppose you could argue For the wrong reasons because I'm also trying to protect my family's like investment and wealth and that Yeah, well, I don't think that's the wrong reasons. I think that's the end of the day That's kind of what we're here for is just to look after our families and we're just we're iterating

It's like okay. That's the next generation the next generation next generation and over time We're sort of evolving and we're there to look after our children So I could I would never say that's the wrong thing people might say it selfish, but that's human nature. Yeah, well Selfish is such a negative word, but actually, you know

The reason that we've evolved them that we're able to stand up and be here today like Is because inherently people are selfish Yeah, you have to be survival people have survived for the last you know that we're still here after however many billions of years that like the planet's been evolving, but I think

There's maybe a wider acceptance now that It's not just about the individual person like we have to look after where we live and and actually we share it with quite a lot of us So I think that's the internet though. Yeah, I think without the internet

We wouldn't be as we are now because without the internet and without these communication channels We would just be like right. We're in the UK. We'd see what's around us and the people around us I can go on twitter now and see Live feeds and people from anywhere in the world and what they're talking about from any field in any country

And you couldn't do that before so we have more empathy now because we're like, oh, like we can actually see what's happening And when you have all propaganda to do with the wars and all these thought of sort of things where you would have just heard it from

The bb sit and you just turn that on and you'd get a one-sided view of everything now you can be like Hang on a minute these people are saying this and you're saying this and they're saying that and they're saying that well They must be like a truth somewhere in the middle roughly there

So you're getting a much that I think that's why there's more empathy and what people are like Yeah, we do share a planet and like we are one species and that we do also share it with animals and we're seeing what's happening in australia And you imagine what that was like 40 years ago learning about what's happening in australia

You didn't have it on your smartphone in your hand like seeing these Images before it goes on the bb see or sky new. Yeah, you see it like it's instant I think that's why and the more connected we are in that way The more we're going to be able to deal with these sort of global problems

But to deal with the global problems you have to be able to communicate value And that is the thing that we're talking about is the ability to do that I mean fundamentally the fact that it's finite is the bit that works for me Right, you know, I get that supply and demand if there's not more and more of it forever than it's worth more

That's the the basic understanding that makes me go. I can believe that That works. Yeah, there's a finite supply Yeah, and and you know, it's even more predictable than stuff like mineral mining for all the gold because you never know They might find more of it. You never walk well

They definitely will because they have it they have it on asteroids They can mine that we don't know how much is in the globe But we also know there's so much more outside of the globe which we can get to and the Stock-to-flow ratio of gold was the best on the planet. It's soon to be bitcoin

We're gonna be it's gonna be flipping so and yeah, like you say it's predictable We can tell exactly what it's gonna be and it can't be messed around with and we don't know how much gold is already above ground We can be told how much gold is above ground

Do we know we know that the gold prices are manipulated and we know that diamond industry Will control the amount that is allowed out. So we don't know whereas with this you know I think so one bitcoin does seem expensive to me. I'm one bitcoin

Yeah, I don't know what we're trading at today, but I guess like six thousand pound give or take And you know, that's a lot of money and I actually think that's a big obstacle for bitcoin. It needs to be sats Yeah, so it needs to be sats like I think that then it becomes more affordable and if people believe that

So toshis are worth something. Yeah, then That's an easier entry because if you say that you got six grand to buy a bitcoin Well, no, I don't know. Yeah, but six grand to yeah, you know, paying with mortgage and stuff like that and therefore breaking it down into

You know, multiples of it. Yeah, it will fractions of it. Sorry. Just then you're you question yourself like you're perceived value and I think that in the community if people could understand sats and satoshis and

And that actually that was maybe the trading commodity and that you know a bitcoin is something to aim for because if there's only 21 million and there's seven billion of us then the chances of all of us having even one bitcoin So it doesn't work. So I think that maybe that's

Something that can help the brand and awareness and allow more people to enter into it It will happen over time. There's no marketing department. No, no, this is the thing. It's like it's pure work I mean for me. It's all been word of mouth and then like interesting something new and different and

Yeah, I'm still a novice in it. Come on. I know more than those. I've been made like I speak to so many people about this and there's I can count on one hand The amount of people who get it and you're one of them like you're one of the only people who would be like

I get the basic idea of it like you're not obsessive about it like I am but you get the basics of it and it's quite rare because It's just such a weird concept and like you say when it's like one bit everyone's like, oh, well I need one Because we used to like pound or a dollar or whatever

So like to say like oh I'll get 100 millionth of what just sounds stupid Yeah, and that's where yeah, it's the branding problem and and even like, you know, you have to be quite brave to Talk about Bitcoin. Yeah, you know, there are no people that I Love and respect that would look at me like I'm nuts for army to I thought and I

The reality is I'll keep my opinions and myself as I was the best way and I and actually He I've realized you can't Or someone to believe in it. They almost have to go on their own individual journey and you know There's no point telling them how it is they have to come to their own conclusion for sure

Yeah, 100% and I I've had people literally laugh in my face And then the ones who don't laugh in my face You just you can feel this like it just they just think you're absolutely mental But then on the other side of it, I know Some of the smartest people that I know on this planet here

They get it. They understand it and but it's taken them time To understand it. I had a friend my last one that I did my last podcast his girlfriend is a banker And she deals with clients with just ridiculous wealth And she at the start Used to laugh at him just like you Don't we talk about and like and she really does know her shit

Like if I want to know something about traditional assets, I'm going to speak to her because she knows infinitely more than I would ever know But she didn't understand this and it's taken about two years of him banging onto it And now she's like, oh, okay, I get it. No, you're right And these are people who really understand finance

So to get the normal person to understand this Is really hard For me, it's the concept is there. Well, yeah, does it work? 100% It's now just a question of Brand awareness and usage. How many people are going to do it?

Yeah, and and and I think the success of bitcoin will be dictated by the number of people using it It's not a question of can it. Yes, it can. Yeah, it's where the people always just but it won't be it won't be our parents generation It will and it won't a lot of other generations. They're the one that's right

There's going to be a change though because we've got a new generation coming into the workforce They're online constantly They want everything 24 hours a day seven days a week the idea of a nine to five banking service You know, and it closes on a weekend and and you've got to fill out this form and that form and it and it's so

It's so 1970s like you've got facts things to them and that The idea of it to them Is going to seem stupid and the idea that you don't know what your interest rates are going to be next year or tomorrow Is going to seem stupid. They're going to say well, why wouldn't you just have that as an algorithm? Why wouldn't you want to know?

Why do you want 12 blokes to go behind closed doors and make decisions on the money for the entire world? Why would like it's going to sit like in retrospect people going to look back and just go what the fuck were we doing?

But we're so used to it that our parents generation won't get it And I've spoken really really fucking smart people who are of that age group and they just cannot get it They cannot get it, but you talk to a 15 year old. They're like, yeah, obviously And they're the ones who are going to come into the workforce

They're the ones who are going to have the money it might not be for another 10 years But at the end of the day, this is something that's built to go on Indefinitely so it's just it's just a waiting game now. How long are we waiting?

It depends what you want really. I mean it works now If you want to say like oh, I don't agree with the wars that are going on I don't agree with what you're doing in terms of oil I want to change I want to help with climate change do it now There's nothing to wait for if you're talking about just price

My prediction is first we will supplant gold and that's a trillion dollar asset Roughly So once we take and we will take that and lots of gold bugs will get annoyed with me saying that but At the end of the day gold Was used as money for very specific reasons and all of those or attributes bitcoin has and better so

If we just take the market cap of gold we're talking Just over half a million a coin and that's if we don't have any growth for any other reason It doesn't become you or useful to anyone else for any other reason So even if it was just for like international settlement If I want to settle with another country

Rather than spending tens of millions of dollars to have armed guards to take gold from a vault Then have it smelted down Then have it checked to make sure there's not tungsten inside Then have more armed guards take it onto a ship then have someone verify it on that side

Then ship it across and make sure no pirates and no other country no one else takes it Then it goes into another vaults then it has to be smelted down again and checked again and verified by two different companies You're talking about millions and millions of dollars in a few months or years to move it

You can move 500 million quid worth of bitcoin in That bowl and it costs you 12p and you can do it anywhere in the world So and it's more secure. It's easier verifiable. It's more scarce It's better on on every level other than you can't make jewelry out of it

That's the only but that you don't really want money to be useful for anything else You want it just to be money because otherwise like that's why you don't use bananas as money because people would eat them. It'd be stupid. So I think we will take gold's market cap within the next five years That would be my guess. So my guess is

Would be a million within 10 years almost definitely I can't see how we don't and and also what what is a million because a million dollars today is very different to a million dollars 10 years ago What could a million dollars buy you 10 years ago compared to today?

It's completely different and it will be that again because if we're going to continue with the Experiment we're running with pounds and dollars and we're going to continue to print We're going to devalue our money more and more So it will get to the point where it's not going to be oh, well how much is a bitcoin?

It's a million pounds or a million dollars. It will be What's a dollar? What's a pound because they don't mean anything anymore in the same way as like As in Zimbabwe, you know, it's like doesn't mean and the way money you don't count it The scary thing about places like that is just how quickly it happened as well

Yeah, you know these like the value of the currency Can just drop in the scariest time possible to the point where you know, I was in South Africa shortly after that And there were people with like 500 million dollar Notes and they're not worth anything. Was it kindly Joe though? Was it just blooded in Gator?

Zimbabwe, but I was in South Africa where people basically had these notes as almost like a memento of it I've got one in my office. Yeah, well there you go then. So you're like others as well Just everyone knows you couldn't buy a loaf of bread with it And and it was and it happened in the quickest time possible

And I think it just shows how fragile Any of these systems are and you know arguably maybe less fragile for people like us, but Oh, yeah, we're the lucky ones. We are the lucky ones, but you know We're probably not the majority in terms of numbers

And there's there's other people in other countries where it's already being used a lot more and it does make you wonder all that You know, no one civilization has held on to Power if you like in inverted commas forever Because sooner or later someone else knocks them off the perch Yeah

Last bit that's happened throughout history. Yeah, and that probably will happen again. It's always yeah Yeah, it's just a way like you say it's just a waiting game. It's the same with I see so many similarities between the The two industries, you know, and I would call Bitcoin an industry now like it

There's so many huge companies and so much amazing development going on around it and then With with energy as well like there's two systems there like That are just better than what we're using now in almost every single way Possible, but we're just not using them. Yeah, it's not quite there, but I do feel like we're on the cusp

I feel like everyone wants better money and they don't know they want it yet because they don't understand it fully But they do want a better store of value and a more fair and easy and faster and more efficient way to trade

And they want to help the planet so they're just I feel like we're on a tipping point. It really does feel like that Yeah, I I think the internet's um been a massive part Right in our life. Well, just technology advancement full stop and the advancement of the human race in in our lifetimes probably been greater than in any other

Like 30 year period in in human history before then and it's mind-blowing. Isn't it? It is you know, I grew up when internet wasn't even there which is crazy to think me too. Just I can't really remember life before it now. No and so

Yes, phenomenal to think how life has changed now compared to when I was a child and I don't feel like I'm that old So and it's going to keep going that way. It's going to keep accelerating It's like I feel like we're the generation that's that in between generation where we're like, oh

It's just like every time you think you're getting used to something it's changed again It's just yeah, it comes out of date so fast and it's all that information sharing It's been able to put clever minds together coordinating. Yeah. Yeah, it is amazing. Um with your business So you're doing just commercial, isn't it?

It is. Yeah, so it the only way we can make it work is at scale Are you still working with data centers and things like that or or like hospitals and things or are you got you're now doing more?

Sort of councils and things like that or yeah, so the reality is I think the climate emergency is helping to drive this so The fact that it makes financial sense is great But the fact that there is massive pressure everywhere it particularly in the UK to to clean up our act means that

It's a priority agenda against people elected now every lockers and that for that reason I do believe that local authorities Like the whole the energy system has been fairly centralized in the UK where we've had like big power stations and in the last 10 years

That game has changed massively and it's become a lot more decentralized with multiple generators And now storage facilities across the country And we still have our interconnectors that go into france and belgium and island and other places where we can buy energy And I just feel that whole games

Changed and actually because it's now decentralized it hands itself to local governments and and you know These people are in a place where they can invest in energy assets They can see a return and they can improve the life of The environment and the constituents in their area. So why wouldn't they do it makes financial sense

It tackles the climate emergency they can lead by example And they'll get voted in again to do it because they're already doing a good job So they're a fundamental part that the concept effectively is driven by the consumer places like Data centers like I love that business and I think the technology

Revolution we've seen in our lifetime and how much Energy they use it's worth it, but we just have to make sure we provide it In the right way. Yeah, so that for me. That's not coal fire power stations No, and I'm still probably not in agreement with everyone and all of my views and mine personally

But I do think it like the nuclear power. We've got as a baseline. That's pretty important I'm not sure. I really want to see new nuclear this fusion and things like that like I would speak a friend of mine who's a Physics guy who was talking to me about fusion and he was like we can nail this like we have infinite power

Basic that's what you said. I've heard so i'm certain firstly not an expert and i've heard of certain Cases where people have created like infinite energy type solutions and then it's been shut down by there's a kid a man Um, you know, there's a kid who's like 14 years old who built a nuclear reactor in his garage

Well, I didn't know that it got taken from him. Obviously. I've got he built he built one. Yeah What I do know is power is pretty critical to all of us. So if we were without power It's probably 48 hours before people start killing each other for food and stuff because everything stops

There's no phones. Yeah, you can't use a navigation system to get around. You can't heat your house It's like, you know, yeah, we think it becomes very very quickly Yeah, and it would be anarchy. So I although i'm a cynic as well whenever I do Like here of those stories. I wonder how

Incredible they are like, okay, at what scale could you do it for everybody and and i'll suppose Well, we have one it's the sun. We'd have one and it is the sun That is that is a nuclear reactor, which is built for us And it's right there. Yeah, and so that's the business you're in is trying to harness that energy

Yeah, absolutely. And I think we can do it. It will take multiple sources You know, the UK is in a great position because it's also an island So tidal and hydro Well, sure so you were saying to me what how long do you think for bitcoin?

I'm saying 10 years before it's like mainstream and used and like we can probably just say look fuck off the current banking system and everything in the way it's where it currently is how long for this for to go if we said right our goal is to

Be a hundred hundred percent renewable. Let's just say in western civilization because it's different for The rest of the world book say in the UK We really wanted to do it if it was like priority number one It was voted and everyone this is what we care about the most

How long would it tell you to do it? Could we could we do it in five years? So the first thing i'll say is In 2019 more than 50 of all the energy we used in the UK was produced with renewable power People don't realize more than i would have thought Yeah more than i would have thought that does include biomass

Which is arguably carbon neutral because is that taking the energy from the trees and all right? Okay, you know burning trees and like and biomass like to create electricity through generators. Okay. Yeah So Okay, maybe it's not exactly where we want it to be but we're on the right path

I'm not you stats to back this up. No, I don't think we're just winging it That's just yeah, but I can I wouldn't be doing what i'm doing if I didn't think we could do it within the next 10 years Right, could we do it in five?

I'm not quite sure that we can okay, and it like being the no illusion the challenge to do this on a global scale Is ridiculous. Yeah, it's completely different. That's why i'm saying just the uk The uk and you know, I i'd like to we're in a great position because we have money to invest Even if it's like prudently

Prudently means to me can you invest it and make a return and we're not talking about massive returns We're talking about moderate returns even if it just washes its face more than washes its face It's cheaper than you can buy powerful Currently from coal or the nuclear deal that we've signed up to that comes online in

2026 it's cheaper than that but also you're going to buy that power anyway Why not buy power from something that you can also make a return on there's nothing The only thing stopping us doing it within a five-year period is probably procurement and time to build and the red table like planning

Permission and things like that. Those are the things that are going to make it true So so if we can just say right if there was a free reign to get on with it Yeah, that's what i'm so that's what i'm doing well under five years So this is what i'm talking and this is what bitcoin can do it can say don't care about your ed tape

Don't care about what you think in your little government cosy office fuck that How quick can we do it? So if we got rid of all of that If there was a blanket look you can build on Aomb which by the way i'm not saying is the right thing to do is like an area of outstanding natural beauty

So parts of the country side. Yeah, maybe i'm probably not on that But so you know for me the planning is important because it's there to protect our heritage And make sure that the country is not used in abuse So not aomb Yeah, and not also so one of them thing is the agriculture

Right, so i'm i definitely don't think that these should be put where food can be grown Be equally agriculture not actually helpful to wildlife like we see green fields pollinators see a desert so to an insect or a bee or lots of birds They can't eat from our

Agriculture right they need wild flowers and things that they can actually eat and live off of so The great thing about a solar farm is it's not going to take that let's say you had a 100 acre solar farm Less than 5% of that land will be penetrated which means you've got 95% of the land you can plant useful things

that will enable wildlife to live a richer life and have more food and therefore Encourage more wildlife into that area. Yeah, so you could we could have a sort of maybe you're in some of these areas Where it's going to disrupt wildlife to some degree?

But if it's only 5% or 10% of it won't disrupt it it will improve it So we look at low grade agriculture where you can't really grow crop and you know Yes, you could put farm animals on it and feed them with feed and stuff the We're looking at low grade agriculture that is completely useless to wildlife. I can't live on that

We turn that site into A place that wildlife wants to live Kenny. So it's a massive improvement right and not just tackles Energy it tackles The wildlife extinction event that's currently ongoing It sounds like we can do it. It's just red tape that's in the way by the sounds of it mainly so fuck all that

Let's make some changes. We're going to be the people in control. We're going to hold the purse strings soon Let's make some changes. So I think Change is happening. I don't necessarily agree with all the tactics of something about what they have done is raise the profile and

For me, I don't protest. No, I'm trying to do is just do something about it. And then in my tiny little world that makes sense But yeah, it does makes sense protesting like I respect what they're doing and what they're trying it do It doesn't work because you're you're asking for permission. Stop protesting. Stop asking

Take back control and go and do something like more people could do this if if they were in or take the jobs You know, yeah, apply I've heard of like medical students Risking their degrees to be part of extinction rebellion, you know, and I can see why they're doing it

They necessarily agree with the tactics, but I 100% agree with the courts and Actually take the jobs where these people are making decisions to invest in our future and start the thing and and that And I'm sure that there are plenty of people there that have that in mind as well But if you want to do something about it get on with it

Do something positive for the people who are thinking like more on a Personal like small like so for me for example in this house from the conversations we've had before It sounds like Trying to have solar and trying to put the batteries and all that sort of stuff It doesn't seem like that's Viable at the moment like looking at it purely

Economic basis like it doesn't look like it really makes sense like how far away from from that where I can say I don't want to take power from the grid anymore. I just want to produce my own How far away where it would like make sense because if everyone just did that like that, you know, that makes massive

Yeah, it's been done on the subsidies. Yeah, the problem is the scale, you know, so It's really difficult to get a set of scaffolding and put things on the roof Access is hard just on an individual house Like if you do it at the point of build it makes absolute sense

But to put that cost on a homeowner already who's probably got less than three months of Living money in their bank is just about You know, they might be like 20 30 years of waiting for their investment to return And they'll think I'm not going to move home in that time

And it that is complicated and I what I guess what I'd say is there's no need for that to happen Like if we can do the infrastructure. Yeah, because we've got still relatively small scale But decentralized like a lot of these different power producing plans and I think for me that's the way to go

If you want to go over and above and accept that it's going to cost you a bit of money to Contribute towards carbon net zero is a great thing to do to invest in solar panels and battery storage on your own home I just also know for the average Joe. That's a big ask. It's just not possible for most people

Yeah, I think that's that's where it comes down to so I think you're right. It's infrastructure It's got is that's the way it's got to go and it's happening. It is happening. I would just love to see it happen quicker Well, maybe it will maybe we can spare some people on to push and get rid of this

I think it could be one of the greatest human achievements if we can solve this problem before we make it Great deal worse. See be amazing. It's a great opportunity. It's exciting like I love it. I absolutely love it It's an exciting thing five years ago. I remember sat guys running dental practices fucking boring

and I remember just thinking like Everything that all the movies I'd seen about the 80s and before and when you're still discovering things and there's all this exciting new Everything was new and exciting and I sort of felt like there's nothing exciting anymore. Everything's so

Fucking boring or so bored and now I'm suddenly like actually no we could live in them one of them Well, probably the most exciting next 20 years could be Absolutely unbelievably exciting with these sort of things. It's such an interesting industry to be in Yeah, I mean, that's why I do it. Yeah, I didn't have to do this

So funny about the things I could do, but I love it and that's great in my world. It makes sense Right. We'll wrap up there. Thank you very much for coming on mate and sharing your knowledge. I really appreciate it I have to get you on again soon. Yeah, lovely. Thank you. All right