BBC 6分钟英语 比特币的能源成本

English from BBC Learning English. Hello.

This is six minute English from BBC, learning English.

I'm Neil,

and I'm Sam. Have you seen my lottery ticket?

Sam? I seem to have lost it somewhere.

Is this another one of your get rich quick schemes?

Neil? People invent all kinds of ways

to make a lot of money quickly and with little effort.

Well, if you really want to get rich quick, maybe you should copy technology.

Tycoon Elon Musk recently he invested one and a half billion in the crypto currency Bitcoin.

Bitcoin has made some people very rich, very quickly.

But as we'll be hearing in this program, it's not without its critics.

Creating Bitcoins, a process known as mining, uses huge amounts of electricity and green campaigners and our questioning Bitcoins on global energy use.

But before we find out more, it's time for my quiz question What year was Bitcoin 1st released?

Was it A 2009? B 2015, or see 2019?

I'll go for B 2015. OK, we'll find out the answer later in the program.

In this program, we are going to talk about bitcoin, the use of the virtual currency.

It's all very well for billionaires like Elon Musk.

But what about the order average person?

Is bitcoin a good option for them?

Well, that's exactly what BBC World Service program Tech Tent wanted to find out by interviewing people in the street.

Here's what one bitcoin fan Hither Delaney, had to say.

I invested in Bitcoin a number of years ago, with the initial investment of only around $5.

It meant that my risk was essentially the cost of a cup of coffee in a pastry.

And as somebody who's quite risk of verse when it comes to investment, it did allow me to dip my tow into Bitcoin.

Over time. I was able to invest at various points.

As I really see, bitcoin is more of a long term investment and part of my my overall pension plan.

Heather describes herself as risk averse.

She wants to avoid risks as much as possible.

By only investing $5, she was able to dip a toe into Bitcoin, try doing something slowly and carefully to test whether she liked it over time, have this Bitcoin investment became part of her pension plan.

Financial plan funded by your salary to save money for when you retire.

So everything seems to be working out for Heather.

But the recent buzz around Bitcoin has also highlighted another less positive side of the story bitcoin's environmental footprint.

Mining bitcoins, the complex process that creates new coins, uses a lot of electricity.

Recent estimates show that Bitcoin has now overtaken the entire annual electricity use of Argentina.

Michelle Rocks works at Cambridge University Center for Alternative Finance, which monitors coins electrical consumption.

Here he is in conversation with BBC World Services Tech tent.

The coin consumes just a colossal amount of electricity, and now whether that electricity expenditure is really worth the benefits or things, that really depends on how you value itself.

But just looking at the electricity consumption, I think we need to put things a bit into perspective.

So on the one hand, if you compare it to a country like Argentina, it's just incredible in the ones bar.

On the other hand, if you compare it to, e.g.

home appliances that are always on some standby but not being used in the US alone, that consumes twice as much electricity on the early basis and the entire Bitcoin network.

Michelle thinks that to assess Bitcoins energy use, we must put things into perspective find the true objective value of something.

Comparing bitcoin's energy use to a huge country like Argentina sounds monstrous, but looked at another way, bitcoin only consumes half the electricity used by all us televisions and other home appliances left on standby, which means powered on and ready to work when needed.

So maybe the best get rich quick scheme is to save money on your electricity bills by turning off your TV.

Well, it's got to be easier than mining Bitcoins.

Which reminds me of your quiz question.

You asked what year Bitcoin was 1st released or And I said, B Which was the wrong answer, I'm afraid, sam, it was 1st released in So maybe

we'd better keep buying lots of tickets.

After all,

it's a pretty good get rich quick scheme way to make a lot of money quickly.

Let's recap the other vocabulary. Now, someone who is risk averse doesn't like taking risks ully

to see how it feels, pension plan is a way of saving money for your retirement.

Pushing things into perspective means assessing the real importance of something, often by comparing it to something similar, like comparing the energy use of Bitcoin with the energy used by electrical appliances left on standby, ready to be used.

And that's all we have time for.

Bye for now. Bye, bye.

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