Green Thinking: Hot Money
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2021
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From Bitcoin mines to green investment bonds: how easy is it to change the way finance works to make it greener? Professor Yu Xiong and Professor Nick Robins share their research, knowledge and concerns of these high-tech financial systems with Professor Des Fitzgerald.
Professor Yu Xiong is Associate Dean International and director of the Centre for Innovation and Commercialization at the Surrey Business School, University of Surrey. His research focuses on sustainability and technological issues with global supply chains, as well as cryptocurrencies and blockchain.
Professor Nick Robins is Professor in Practice – Sustainable Finance at the London School of Economics. His work focuses on how to mobilise finance for climate change, and how financial systems can support the restoration of nature. You can read blog posts by Nick Robins on his research here: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/profile/nick-robins/#news
Professor Des Fitzgerald is a New Generation Thinker based at the University of Exeter.
You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Des Fitzgerald and Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion.
The podcasts are all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2 For more information about the research the AHRC’s supports around climate change and the natural world you can visit: https://www.ukri.org/our-work/responding-to-climate-change/ or follow @ahrcpress on twitter. To join the discussion about the research covered in this podcast and the series please use the hashtag #GreenThinkingPodcast.
Producer: Marcus Smith
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps |
| 0:21.2 | it. It's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream |
| 0:26.1 | van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.3 | Hello, I'm Des Fitzgerald and welcome to this episode of Green Thinking, where we're looking |
| 0:41.0 | at new research that sheds light on new stories like this one. |
| 0:44.6 | The global electricity consumption of Bitcoin is now greater than the total amount of electricity |
| 0:49.5 | consumed in Argentina, Sweden and the Netherlands. |
| 0:53.7 | And China is the centre for Bitcoin mining, |
| 0:56.0 | responsible for more than 65% of activity every month. |
| 1:01.0 | What does this look like? |
| 1:03.0 | Our Asia correspondent Tom Cheshire has got exclusive access to a Bitcoin farm. |
| 1:08.0 | We can't tell you where exactly in Western China this is. |
| 1:13.8 | What we're about to see is being kept secret from the authorities. |
| 1:18.7 | Welcome to my mining bar. |
| 1:21.7 | Bitcoin is a digital currency, but this is where the very real process of mining it happens. |
| 1:29.3 | Thousands of computers solving mathematical problems and earning Bitcoins as a result, |
| 1:34.3 | around £80,000 worth each day. |
| 1:37.3 | That's a Sky News report from earlier this year on the energy consumption of secret Bitcoin farms. |
| 1:42.3 | That's our topic today. I'm joined by Professor |
| 1:44.8 | Huichung, Associate Dean for International at Serra University, and also by Professor Nick Robbins |
| 1:49.7 | from the London School of Economics, who was also the author of the Road to Net Zero Finance |
| 1:53.3 | for the UK's Climate Change Committee. Hello. Hi, I did. Hello. If I may start with you, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.