8. Составьте аннотацию к тексту (2 – 3 предложения).

9. Составьте реферат текста (10 – 15 предложений).

10. Составьте план текста и перескажите текст.

Вариант 15

1. Прочитайте и переведите текст:

ATOMIC POWER PLANTS have become operational in many countries of the world. They could have become an inexhaustible source of electric power but for the danger they might cause to the environment.

To understand why people object to building new atomic power plants it is necessary to get to know the process of converting nuclear energy into electrical one.

All nuclear reactors of atomic power plants work by splitting uranium atoms and releasing energy in the form of heat. The heat is then used to boil water and produce steam which is directed onto turbine blades to drive the turbines and electric generators.

The dangerous part of the process is the release of heat as a result of nuclear fission. The amount of heat is so great that unless the reactor is cooled properly by constantly circulating water, the fuel rods in the active reactor zone can melt into uncontrollable mass capable of destroying the reactor wall and releasing deadly ra­dioactivity.

And despite the fact that the reactors are equipped with multiple sets of water pipes and reserve cooling systems various faults occur which endanger the entire system.

A number of accidents in the course of decades of atomic power plants operation, the most disastrous being the Chernobyl catastrophe, required special measures to make them safer and that, no doubt, will make electricity more expensive.

Today designers have found ways to build reactors that are much safer than those now in operation. Instead of one huge reactor with many uranium rods they propose to construct a series of four small-scale separate reactors that use fuel in such small quantities that it can't melt down under any circumstances. And the fuel itself will be introduced into the reactors in the form of com­paratively small grains encapsulated in ceramic spheres that can withstand temperatures as high as 1820°C. (The reactor fuel in this case will never reach temperature higher than 1650°C.)

The reactors will be cooled by helium, the cooling system being easier to operate. Besides, for greater safety purposes all the reactors would be buried belowground.

The only drawback of the proposed design is the com­paratively lower electrical output.

The problem that has not been solved by the new proposal is how to get rid of the used up nuclear fuel.

Radioactive waste remains deadly for life during many centuries, contaminating soil and water and causing se­vere damage to the environment. Unfortunately the prob­lem of waste disposal has not been solved anywhere in the world.

The nuclear powers (the USA, Britain, France, China, and the former USSR) have tried various methods of waste disposal.

Here are some of them:

1) Sealed in thick concrete containers it is buried deep in some remote parts of the ocean.

Some scientists consider this method to be a delayed action atomic bomb aimed against future generations, as nobody can tell what might happen to the containers in the course of time.

2) Nuclear fuel is put into deep shafts of no longer usable coal or salt mines.

3) Used up fuel is buried underground in special damps. The method does not exclude a danger of bring­ing the fuel back to the surface by underground water. The nuclear waste can't be in this case controlled effi­ciently.

4) The French have pioneered a process called vitri­fication that involves mixing radioactive waste with molten glass. The stable radioactive solid mass can then be buried deep underground.

5) The US scientists propose to use underground stor­age of radioactive waste in deep bores drilled in granite mountains. The latter two methods alongside with a proper warning system guarding people and animals against access to such areas might be a possible solution of the problem.

High-level RADIOACTIVE WASTES — in the form of spent fuel rods packed into pools at commercial nuclear power plants or as toxic slurries housed in tanks and drums at various facilities built for the production of nuclear weapons—have been accumulating for more than half a century, with no permanent disposal method yet demonstrated. For instance, in the U.S. there are now more than 30,000 metric tons of spent fuel stored at nuclear power plants, and the amount grows by about 2,000 metric tons a year. The nuclear waste repository (is under development at Yucca Mountain, Nev., now mired in controversy and not expected to open before 2015 at the earliest.

The disposition of excess plutonium and uranium taken from decommissioned nuclear weapons is an even more pressing issue, given the crisis that might ensue -if such material were to fall into the wrong hands. The U.S. and Russia have each accumulated more than 100 metric tons of weapons-grade plutonium, and each country should have at least 50 metric tons of excess plutonium, plus hundreds of tons of highly enriched uranium, left over from dismantled nuclear weapons.

SPENT REACTOR FUEL will more than double in quantity in the U.S. by the year 2020, even if no new nuclear power plants are built, according to estimates of the Department of Energy. Because no procedures for permanent disposal are yet established, the spent nuclear fuel is now stored temporarily at the reactor sites, often in cooling ponds.

STEEL PIPE, lowered from a ship on the surface, would be used to drill holes in the deep-sea muds and, later, convey nuclear waste containers for permanent burial— according to the plan envisioned. Mud pumped into the borehole would then seal the nuclear refuse within the clay-rich undersea formation, effectively isolating the radioactive materials.

SEAFLOOR PROVINCES are not all suited for the disposal of nuclear wastes. In searching for candidate areas, scientists would probably eliminate places where the ocean floor is shallower than about four kilometers, because these areas coincide with plate-tectonic spreading centers and are often blanketed by inappropriate types of sediments. They would also rule out other regions of tectonic activity, such as plate collision or vulcanism: Polar zones (latitudes higher than 60 degrees) would be discounted because marine sediments there commonly contain coarse rock fragments carried in by icebergs. Even after these and other broad areas (such as around continental rises, where the sediments are thick enough to house valuable quantities of oil or gas) are exempted, vast stretches of seafloor still offer ample possibilities for burying nuclear wastes.

2. Переведите на русский язык следующие английские словосочетания:

1. an inexhaustible source of electric power

2. process of converting nuclear energy

3. turbine blades

4. nuclear fission

5. constantly circulating water

6. release deadly ra­dioactivity

7. multiple sets of water pipes

8. endanger the entire system

9. can't melt down under any circumstances

10. seafloorprovinces

3. Найдите в тексте английские эквиваленты следующих словосочетаний:

1. атомная электростанция

2. путем расщепления атомов урана

3. различные показатели

4. сравнительно низкий показатель производимого электричества

5. будут располагаться под землей

6. неиссякаемый источник

7. избавиться от использованного ядерного топлива

8. переработка отходов

9. ядерная бомба замедленного действия

10. захоронение ядерных отходов

4. Найдите в тексте слова, имеющие общий корень с данными словами. Определите, к какой части речи они относятся, обозначьте словообразовательную морфему (приставка, корень, суффикс) либо дополнительный корень при словосложении и переведите слова на русский язык:

1. danger

2. control

3. constant

4. compare

5. use

6. possible

7. dispose

8. mantle

9. effect

10. exhaust