考研英语外刊：比特币挖矿成本高过铜和黄金

The amount of energy required to “mine” one dollar’s worth of bitcoin is more than twice that required to mine the same value of copper, gold or platinum, according to a new paper, suggesting that the virtual work that underpins bitcoin, ethereum and similar projects is more similar to real mining than anyone intended.

One dollar’s worth of bitcoin takes about 17 megajoules of energy to mine, according to researchers from the Oak Ridge Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio, compared with four, five and seven megajoules for copper, gold and platinum.

单词笔记：

1. energy    英 [ˈenədʒi]   美 [ˈenərdʒi]  

n.精力;活力;干劲;力量;能源

复数： energies

2. copper    英 [ˈkɒpə(r)]   美 [ˈkɑːpər]  

n.铜;铜币;警察

复数： coppers

3. platinum    英 [ˈplætɪnəm]   美 [ˈplætɪnəm]  

n.铂;白金

4. virtual    英 [ˈvɜːtʃuəl]   美 [ˈvɜːrtʃuəl]  

adj.很接近的;几乎……的;事实上的;实际上的;实质上的;(通过计算机软件，如在互联网上)模拟的，虚拟的

5. underpin    英 [ˌʌndəˈpɪn]   美 [ˌʌndərˈpɪn]  

v.加强，巩固，构成(……的基础等);加固(墙)基

第三人称单数： underpins 现在分词： underpinning 过去式： underpinned 过去分词： underpinned

派生词： underpinning n.

6. megajoule    兆焦耳;百万焦耳;兆焦;兆焦耳激光装置