Московский государственный технический университет

имени Н.Э. Баумана.

О.М. ЛОСЕВА, Т.А. ФУФУРИНА

Renewable sources of energy

ОБУЧЕНИЕ ЧТЕНИЮ НА АНГЛИЙСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ ТЕХНИЧЕСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ ПО СПЕЦИАЛЬНОСТИ

« НЕТРАДИЦИОННЫЕ ИСТОЧНИКИ ЗНЕРГИИ».

УЧЕБНО-МЕТОДИЧЕСКОЕ ПОСОБИЕ

МОСКВА

Издательство МГТУ имени Н.Э. Баумана

2007

Научный редактор: к.ф.н. доцент Беликова Ирина Федоровна

UNIT 1

New words and word-combinations:

Fossil fuels – ископаемое топливо

to run out – заканчиваться, истощаться

to keep up with the demand – идти в ногу с требованиями

consumption - потребление

harmful gases – вредные газы

vehicular pollution - загрязнение транспортом

to cause a damage – наносить ущерб

crude oil – сырье, сырая нефть

depletion – истощение, обеднение

ultimate replacement – окончательная замена

eventually – в конце концов, в конечном счете

promising - многообещающий

fusion – плавление, синтез ядер

fusion energy – термоядерная энергия

net energy yield – выход полезной энергии

Exercise 1. Give opposite meaning of the following adjectives using negative prefixes:

Renewable, conventional, polluting, expensive, important, effective, efficient, significant, nuclear, dangerous, sufficient, potential, available, serious, definite, sustainable, successful, limited.

Exercise 2. Read and translate the text 1A using a dictionary.

TEXT 1A. WHAT IS RENEWABLE ENERGY?

Can you imagine life without television, cars, or computers? What if you had to cook your dinner over a fire or fetch water from a river? It might be fun for a camping trip, but you probably would not want to do it every day. But that’s how life was before scientists and inventors discovered ways to use energy to make our lives easier.

Today, most of energy we use comes from fossil fuels. Coal, crude oil, and natural gas are all fossil fuels. Over millions of years, the decay of plants, dinosaurs, and other animals was formed into fossil fuels. These fuels lie buried between layers of earth and rock. The only way to get them out is to drill or mine for them. While fossil fuels are still being created today by underground heat and pressure, they are being consumed more rapidly than they are created. For that reason, fossil fuels are considered non-renewable; that is they are not replaced as soon as we use them. So, we could run out of them sometime in the future. Or, we might someday use so much fossil fuel that we won’t be able to drill or mine fast enough to keep up with the demand.

In the past century, it has been seen that the consumption of non-renewable sources of energy has caused more environmental damage than any other human activity. Electricity generated from fossil fuels such as coal and crude oil has led to high concentrations of harmful gases in the atmosphere. This has in turn led to many problems being faced today such as ozone depletion and global warming. Vehicular pollution has also been a major problem.

Because our world depends so much on energy, we need to find sources of energy that will last a long time. What if there was a type of energy that never ran out? There is. It is called renewable energy.

In addition, because there are so many people on earth using fossil fuels, we create a lot of pollution. So, we should also use energy sources that produce as little pollution as possible. While all energy sources cause some pollution in their creation or their consumption, renewable energy systems generally are less polluting than fossil fuel systems. Under the category of renewable energy or non-conventional energy are such energy systems as: solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, hydropower and others.

Renewable energy is the ultimate replacement for any non-renewable source. Certainly, the day will come when this fossil fuel era will pass and eventually fade totally into the history books. And what will life be like then? Even more important perhaps is what we will have to do - and even endure - to get there.

Despite nuclear energy’s role as a significant power supply source, it is highly unlikely it will survive past the 21-st century if that long. Many people are against it, storage of its highly radioactive wastes is difficult and costly, there are not enough ores available to maintain continued production of nuclear energy as it is being done today, and most of today’s nuclear plants will reach the end of their life-span within the next 50 years.

While hydro, solar, wind (a very efficient energy source), geothermal are currently our most promising forms of renewable energy to develop for future use, there are sources that many scientists classify in the “surprise category” that theoretically hold great promise. These sources range from the mining of methane hydrates (a fossil fuel that exists under the oceans and dangerous) and hydrogen fusion from simple H2O – the same process that powers our Sun and all the stars of the universe, to sources we have yet to discover. The starting potential of hydrogen fusion is so great that the US government has launched an initiative to study whether it’s feasible within the next 35 years to develop and use what’s known as fusion energy.

And, there are other fossil fuels that some scientists believe may be able to help contribute to the current energy pressures, but these forms have a low net energy yield, are difficult to process, and have serious pollution side-effects. They are oil shale and tar sands. Still, it appears unlikely that these forms will ever be used as significant sources of energy.

The Sun, no doubt, holds the greatest potential to meet the world’s energy demands. But it will take a change in the technological, political and economic landscape for it to be realized. Still, the most plausible answer for our indefinite energy needs lies in a cohesive, sensible and ecologically sustainable combination of the resources available to us. The incentives must be there to be successful – political, economic, and human intelligence – and success can be achieved only through the use of renewable energy in ways that will ensure the healthy sustainability of Earth’s life systems.

Exercise 3. Look through the text and answer the questions:

1. What did fossil fuels come from? 2. How can we get fossil fuels? 3. What does the word non-renewable mean? 3.What happened with non-renewable sources of energy in the past? 4. What is called renewable energy? Give some examples. 5. What are the perspectives of using renewable energy in the future? 6.What does the expression “surprise category” mean? 7.What success can be achieved when using the renewable energy?

Exercise 4. Translate the following word-combinations from Russian into English:

Возобновляемая энергия, потребление источников энергии, ископаемое топливо, выработка электроэнергии, вредные газы, обеднение озона, глобальное потепление, загрязнение транспортом, удовлетворять мировым требования по электроэнергии.

Exercise 5. Fill in the right word in the gap using the active vocabulary:

1.Renewable energy is so called because it relies on natural energy flows and sources in the environment will never … .

2. We create a lot of pollution by using … .

3.The … of non-renewable sources of energy has … much damage.

4.Fossil fuels are so widely used that we might not … and mine and drill them fast enough.

5.Global warming and … are two of a great amount of problems that we face today.

Exercise 6. Translate the following sentences into Russian paying attention to Complex Subject:

1.Power plants are considered to be the largest stationary source of air pollution in the United States, emitting millions of tons of sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides and carbon dioxide each year. 2.These pollutants are believed to be the cause of global warming. 3.Nuclear energy is not likely to be the major source of world energy consumption because of public pressure and the relative dangers associated with unleashing the power of the atom. 4.Combustion of fossil fuels is considered to be the largest contributing factor to the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. 5.Large members of wind generators are required to produce useful amounts of heat or electricity. 6.Wind power is thought to suffer from the same lack of energy density as direct solar radiation. 7.Wind turbines are unlikely to be erected everywhere simply because many places are not breezy enough for suitable power generation. 8.Fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas are said to be the three kinds of fossil fuels we have mostly depended on for our energy needs. 9.Global warming is expected to have an extensive impact on the environment. 10. Our human population seems to depend on the burning of fossil fuels to meet nearly all of its energy demands.

Exercise 7. Express your opinion and discuss the problems:

1.What kind of damage has been caused by the consumption of non-renewable sources of energy? 2. Why do we need new sources of energy?

Exercise 8. Read and translate the text 1B.