Focused Practice

I. Answer the following questions:

1. Why is Japan unable to import energy in the form of electric power?

2. What do estimates of future electric power demand indicate?

3. How many nuclear power plants with a capacity of 356 GW are operating in the world at present?

4. What need do Asian countries have?

5. What reactors will probably be the main types of reactors in the next generation in Japan?

6. What will the design concepts of these reactors incorporate?

II. Analyse the grammar structures underlined in the above text.

III. Speak on: Nuclear power plants.

Unit 35 Grammar: The Passive Voice Word List:

1. renewable energy sources	возобновляемые источники энергии
2. incorporation	присоединение
3. harvest	урожай
4. erosion	эрозия
5. to take into account	принимать во внимание
6. arable land	пахотная земля, пашня
7. fallow land	земля под паром, залежь, новь
8. enerdy crops	энергетическая масса (для сжигания)
9. traditional crops	традиционные сельскохозяйственные культуры
10. cereals	зерновые культуры
11. sunflower	подсолнечник

Large–Scale Economic Integration of Electricity from Short-Rotation Woody Crops

Biomass is a renewable energy source formed by incorporation of CO₂ through the photosynthesis process. Biomass combustion releases the photo-synthetic energy which can be used as electricity and/or heat. In this analysis the economic aspects of the production and use of biomass are examined for large-scale electricity generation. The study is set in Spain, as an example of a potential site suitable for large-scale production and use of biomass.

The study considers the chain of production and harvest of biomass; the generation of electricity; the environmental impacts, and the economic costs. A Geographical Information System (GIS) has been used for site selection for plantations and power plants. The GIS criteria have been optimized to generate an environmentally friendly scheme at lowest cost, while maintaining a fully sustainable energy resource. These include land availability, rainfall, accessibility to cooling water for the power plants, proximity to suitable electrical substations, access and availability of staff. Each power plant is at the center of a circle with a maximum radius of 40 km, within which all the biomass for the plant is produced.

In Spain, the most relevant environmental issues that should be taken into account in a large-scale biomass scheme are land erosion and the rational use of the water. In order to reduce these factors as much as possible, an important decision has been taken in the global process: to consider only non-irrigated arable lands. Nowadays, part of these non-irrigated lands is set-aside or fallow lands. In the current use, the erosion could be 50 times larger than it might be with energy crops. In other cases, energy crops might be planted with traditional crops such as cereals and sunflowers, which require intensive agricultural techniques and frequent intervention, thus producing higher erosion (three times larger than energy crops).