晨讀英語美文60篇57 Energy in the Future

[00:00.00]Fuel Cell—Energy in the Future [00:09.66]The price of oil has soared from $43.45 a barrel to $65.35, a 50% gain. [00:19.95]It is transportation such as driving back and forth to work [00:24.32]and visiting companies that burns lots of fossil fuel. [00:28.39]Suppressed by the increasing oil price, [00:31.44]does it ever occur to you that a new, [00:33.75]lightweight fuel cell running on methanol power you electric car? [00:38.22]If they work, [00:39.76]methanol fuel cells could be a major breakthrough in energy consumption [00:44.13]and conservation and drastically cut air pollution from auto emissions. [00:48.94]Whether they are used to run cars and buses [00:52.88]or to make electricity for other applications, [00:55.82]fuel cells operate by converting hydrogen to electricity [01:00.10]without combustion. [01:01.73]They are akin to continuously-recharging batteries. [01:06.54]Hydrogen and oxygen are fed into a stack of plates that create electricity, [01:11.35]with harmless water vapor as the by-product. [01:14.53]These silent, zero-emission gadgets have long been used in NASA spacecraft. [01:20.34]They represent the great hope of many environmentalists [01:24.49]to power the first mass-produced electric car. [01:27.98]Now the fuel cells are favoured by many venture companies through the world, [01:33.12]such as Fuel Cell, Plug Power, [01:37.56]Fuel-Cell Energy specializes in stocks of alternative energy companies. [01:42.14]Plug Power is one of the few publicly traded fuel-cell companies. [01:47.17]Unfortunately, neither company is making money at the moment. [01:51.98]Fuel Cell lost $1.58 per share the past 12 months. [01:58.22]Plug Power lost $64 cents a share. [02:02.16]In the future, we may rely on many different types of power. [02:05.65]Hydrogen, for example, [02:07.29]has been praised as a clean fuel with great potential. [02:10.90]But it’s still in the experimental stages. [02:14.09]Two possible hydrogen plays: [02:16.48]Quantum Fuel System Technologies, [02:19.01]which designs and engineers hybrid and fuel-cell, vehicles. [02:23.59]It, too is losting money. [02:26.32]Praxair, an industrial gas company, making hydrogen, [02:30.37]the company earned $2.29 per share the past 12 months. [02:35.96]French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen on Monday [02:40.65]unveiled the smallest fuel cell currently available for cars [02:44.14]and pledged further research to halve the price [02:47.65]of these environmental friendly power sources by 2010. [02:51.47]The fuel cell is an 80 KW power unit and the size of a big suitcase [02:56.84]that can be used in light municipal vehicles. [03:00.00]It can run for 500 km, [03:02.86]but still insufficient for general use. [03:05.91]Furthermore, the size of them remain a problem [03:09.87]that needs to be solved. [03:12.14]Another problem remains starting with cold temperatures. [03:15.09]We can still say confidently it offers a real answer for the future, [03:20.50]as is put it by the vice president of French Carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen.

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