快速阅读(大学英语学习).pdf

《快速阅读(大学英语学习).pdf》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《快速阅读(大学英语学习).pdf（21页珍藏版）》请在淘文阁 - 分享文档赚钱的网站上搜索。

1、快速阅读2007年12月份Seven Ways to Save the WorldForget the old idea that conserving energy is a form of self-denialriding bicycles,dimming the lights,and taking fewer showers.These days conservation is all about efficiency:getting the same-or better-resultsfrom just a fraction of the energy.When a slump in

2、 business travel forced Ulrich Romer to cut costs at hisfamily-owned hotel in Germany,he replaced hundreds of the hotefs wasteful light bulbs,getting the same light for80 percent less power.He bought a new water boiler with a digitally controlled pump,and wrapped insulationaround the pipes.Spending

3、about 100,000 on these and other improvements,he slashed his 90,000 fuel andpower bill by 60,000.As a bonus,the hoteFs lower energy needs have reduced its annual carbon emissions bymore than 200 metric tons.t4For us,saving energy has been very,very profitable,he says.And most importantly,were not gi

4、ving up a single comfort for our guests.”Efficiency is also a great way to lower carbon emissions and help slow global warming.But the bestargument for efficiency is its cost-or,more precisely,its profitability.Thats because quickly growing energydemand requires immense investment in new supply,not

5、to mention the drain of rising energy prices.No wonder efficiency has moved to the top of the political agenda.On Jan.10,the European Union unveileda plan to cut energy use across the continent by 20 percent by 2020.Last March,China imposed a 20 percentincrease in energy efficiency by 2020.Even Greo

6、rge W.Bush,the Texas oilman,is expected to talk about energyconservation in his State of the Union speech this week.The good news is that the world is full of proven,cheap ways to save energy.Here are the seven that could have the biggest impact:InsulateSpace heating and cooling eats up 36 percent o

7、f all the worlds energy.Theres virtually no limit to howmuch of that can be saved,as prototype“zero-energy homes in Switzerland and Germany have shown.Theresbeen a surge in new ways of keeping heat in and cold out(or vice versa).The most advanced insulation follows thelaw of increasing returns:if yo

8、u add enough,you can scale down or even eliminate heating and air-conditioningequipment,lowering costs even before you start saving on utility bills.Studies have shown that greenworkplaces(ones that dont constantly need to have the heat or air-conditioner running)have higher workerproductivity and l

9、ower sick rates.Change Bulbs Lighting eats up 20 percent of the worlds electricity,or theequivalent of roughly 600,000 tons of coal a day.Forty percent of that powers old-fashioned incandescent lightbulbsa 19th-century technology that wastes most of the power it consumes on unwanted heat.Compact flu

10、orescent lamps,or CFLs,not only use 75 to 80 percent less electricity than incandescent bulbsto generate the same amount of light,but they also last 10 times longer.Phasing old bulbs out by 2030 would savethe output of 650 power plants and avoid the release of 700 million tons of carbon into the atm

11、osphere eachyear.Comfort ZoneWater boilers,space heaters and air conditioners have been notoriously inefficient.The heat pump hasaltered that equation.It removes heat from the air outside or the ground below and uses it to supply heat to abuilding or its water supply.In the summer the system can be

12、reversed to cool buildings as well.Most newresidential buildings in Sweden are already heated with ground-source heat pumps.Such systems consume almostno conventional fuel at all.Several countries have used subsidies to jump-start the market,including Japan,wherealmost 1 million heat pumps have been

13、 installed in the past two years to heat water for showers and hottubs.Remake FactoriesFrom steel mills to paper factories,industry eats up about a third of the worlds energy.The opportunities tosave are vast.In Ludwigshafen,German chemicals giant BASF runs an interconnected complex of more than 200

14、chemical factories,where heat produced by one chemical process is used to power the next.At the Ludwigshafensite alone,such recycling of heat and energy saves the company 200 million a year and almost half its CO2emissions.Now BASF is doing the same for new plants in China.Optimizing(优 化)energy effi

15、ciency is adecisive competitive advantage/*says BASF CEO Jurgen Hambrecht.Green DrivingA quarter of the worlds energyincluding two thirds of the annual production of oilis used fortransportation.Some savings come free of charge:you can boost fuel efficiency by 6 percent simply by keepingyour cars ti

16、res properly inflated(充气).Gasoline-electric hybrid。昆合型的)models like the Toyota Prius improvemileage by a further 20 percent over conventional models.A Better Fridge More than half of all residentialpower goes into running household appliances,producing a fifth of the worlds carbon emissions.And that

17、s trueeven though manufacturers have already hiked the efficiency of refrigerators and other white goods by as much as70 percent since the 1980s.According to an International Energy Agency study,if consumers chose those modelsthat would save them the most money over the life of the appliance,theyd c

18、ut global residential powerconsumption(and their utility bills)by 43 percent.Flexible PaymentWho says you have to pay for all your conservation investments?”Energy service contractors will pay forretrofitting(翻新改造)in return for a share of the clients annual utility-bill savings.In Beijing,Shenwu The

19、rmalEnergy Technology Co.specializes in retrofitting Chinas steel furnaces.Shenwu puts up the initial investment toinstall a heat exchanger that preheats the air going into the furnace,slashing the clients fuel costs.Shenwupockets a cut of those savings,so both Shenwu and the client profit.If saving

20、 energy is so easy andprofitable,why isnt everyone doing it?It has to do with psychology and a lack of information.Most of us tend tolook at todays price tag more than tomorrows potential savings.That holds double for the landlord or developer,who wont actually see a penny of the savings his investm

21、ent in better insulation or a better heating system mightgenerate.In many peoples minds,conservation is still associated with self-denial.Many environmentalists stillpush that view.Smart governments can help push the market in the right direction.The EUs 1994 law on labeling was sucha success that i

22、t extended the same idea to entire buildings last year.To boost the market value of efficiency,allnew buildings are required to have an“energy pass“detailing power and heating consumption.Countries likeJapan and Germany have successively tightened building codes,requiring an increase in insulation l

23、evels butleaving it up to builders to decide how to meet them.The most powerful incentives,of course,will come from the market itself.Over the past year,sky-high fuelprices have focused minds on efficiency like never before.Ever-increasing pressure to cut costs has finallyforced more companies to do

24、 some math on their energy use.Will it be enough?With global demand and emissions rising so fast,we may not have any choice but to try.Efficient technology is here now,proven and cheap.Compared with all other options,its the biggest,easiest andmost profitable bang fbr the buck.1.What is said to be t

25、he best way to conserve energy nowadays?A)Raising efficiency.B)Cutting unnecessary costs.C)Finding alternative resources.D)Sacrificing some personal comforts.2.What does the European Union plan to do?A)Diversify energy supply.B)Cut energy consumption.C)Reduce carbon emissions.D)Raise production effi

26、ciency.3.If you add enough insulation to your house,you may be able to.A)improve your work environment B)cut your utility bills by halfC)get rid of air-conditioners D)enjoy much better health4.How much of the power consumed by incandescent bulbs is converted into light?A)A small portion.B)Some 40 pe

27、rcentB)C)Almost half.D)75 to 80 percent.5.Some countries have tried to jump-start the market of heat pumps by.A)upgrading the equipment B)encouraging investmentsC)implementing high-tech D)providing subsidies6.German chemicals giant BASF saves 200 million a year by.A)recycling heat and energy B)setti

28、ng up factories in ChinaC)using the newest technology D)reducing the CO2 emissions of its plants7.Global residential power consumption can be cut by 43 percent if.A)we increase the insulation of walls and water pipesB)we choose simpler models of electrical appliancesC)we cut down on the use of refri

29、gerators and other white goodsD)we choose the most efficient models ofrefigerators and other white goods8.Energy service contractors profit by taking a part of c l i e nt s .9.Many environmentalists maintain the view that conservation has much to do wi t h.10.The strongest incentives for energy cons

30、ervation will derive f r om.2008年 6 月份What will the world be like in fifty years?This week some top scientists,including Nobel Prize winners,gave their vision of how the world will lookin 2056,fron gas-powered cars to extraordinary health advances,John Ingham reports on what the worldsfinest minds b

31、elieve our futures will be.For those of us lucky enough to live that long,2056 will be a world of almost perpetual youth,where obesityis a remote memory and robots become our companions.We will be rubbing shoulders with aliens and colonizing outer space.Better still,our descendants might atlast live

32、 in a world at peace with itself.The prediction is that we will have found a source of inexhaustible,safe,green energy,and that science willhave killed off religion.If they are right we will have removed two of the main causes of war-ourdependence on oil and religious prejudice.Will we really,as tod

33、ays scientists claim,be able to live for ever or at least cheat the ageing process so thatthe average person lives to 150?Of course,all these predictions come with a scientific health warning.Harvard professor Steven Pinker says:This is an invitation to look foolish,as with the predictions of domed

34、cities and nuclear-powered vacuumcleaners that were made 50 year ago.”Living longerAnthony Atala,director of the Wake Forest Institute in North Carolina,belives failing organs will berepaired by injecting cells into the body.They will naturally to straight to the injury and help heal it.Asystem of i

35、njections without needles could also slow the ageing process by using the same process to“tune”cells.Bruce Lahn,professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago,anticipates the ability toproduce4unlimited supplies“of transplantable human organs without the needed a new organ,such askidney,th

36、e surgeon would contact a commercial organ producer,give him the patients immuno-logicalprofile and would then be sent a kidney with the correct tissue type.These organs would be entirely composed of human cells,grown by introducing them into animal hosts,andalloweing them to deveoop into and organ

37、in place of the animafs own.But Prof.Lahn believes that farmedbrains would be“off limits”.He says:Very few people would want to have their brains replaced bysomeone elses and we probably dont want to put a human brain ing an animal body.Richard Miller,a professor at the University of Michigan,thinks

38、 scientist could developt4an thenticanti-ageing drugs”by working out how cells in larger animals such as whales and human resist many formsof injuries.He says:Its is now routine,in laboratory mammals,to extend lifespan by about 40%.Turningon the same protective systems in people should,by 2056,creat

39、e the first class of 100-year-olds who are asvigorous and productive as todays people in their 60s”AliensConlin Pillinger,professor of planerary sciences at the Open University,says/n fancy that at least we will beable to show that life didi start to evolve on Mars well as Earth.Within 50years he ho

40、pes scientists willprove that alien life came here in Martian meteorites（陨石）.Chris McKay,a planetary scientist at NASAs Ames Research Center.believes that in 50 years we may findevidence of alien life in ancient permanent forst of Mars or on other planers.He addsfThere is even a chance we will find

41、alien life forms here on Earth.lt mightbe as different asEnglish is to Chinese.Priceton professor Freeman Dyson thinks it“likely that life form outer space will be discovered defore2056 because the tools for finding it,such as optical and radio detection and data processing,are improving.He ays:As s

42、oon as the first evidence is found,we will know what to look for and additional discoveries arelikely to follow quickly.Such discoveries are likely to have revolutionary consequences for biology,astronomy and philosophy.They may change the way we look at ourselves and our place in the universe.Colon

43、ies in spaceRichard Gottprofessor of astrophysics at Princeton,hopes man will set up a self-sufficient colony onMars,which would be a“life insurance policy against whatever catastrophes,natural or otherwise,mightoccur on Earth.“The real space race is whether we will colonise off Earth on to other wo

44、rlds before money for the spaceprogramme runs out.”Spinal injuriesEllen Heber-Katz,a professor at the Wistar Institude in Philadelphia,foresees cures for inijuries causingparalysis such as the one that afflicated Superman star Christopher Reeve.She saysfl believe that the day is not far off when we

45、will be able to profescribe drugs that causeseveres（断裂的）spinal cords to heal,hearts to regenerate and lost limbs to regrow.“People will come to expect that injured or diseased organs are meant to be repaired from within,inmuch thesame way that we fix an appliance or automobile:by replancing the dama

46、ged part with amanufacturer-certified new part.She predict that within 5 to 10 years fingers and toes will be regrown andlimbs will start to be regrown a few years later.Reparies to the nervous system will start with optic nervesand,in time,the spinal cord.Within 50years whole body replacement will

47、be routine,Prof.Heber-Katz adds.ObesitySydney Brenner,senior distinguished fellow of the Crick-Jacobs Center in California,won the 2002 N obi elPrize for Medicine and says that if there is a global disaster some humans will survive-and evolition willfavour small people with bodies large enough to su

48、pport the required amount of brain power.Obesityhesays.wiH have been solved.”RobotsRodney Brooks,professor of robotice at MIT,says the problems of developing artificial intelligence forrobots will be at least partly overcome.As a result,“the possibilities for robots working with people willopen up i

49、mmenselyEnergyBill Joy,green technology expert in California,says/The most significant breakthrought would be to have aninexhaustible source of safe,green energy that is substantially cheaper than any existing energy source.Ideally,such a source would be safe in that it could not be made into weapon

50、s and would not makehazardous or toxic waste or carbon dioxide,the main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.SocietyGeoffrey Miller,evolutionary psychologist at the University of New Mexico,says:vThe US will follow theUKin realizing that religion is nor a prerequisite（前提）for ordinary human decen