VOA慢速英语:美国能源部发起能源奖竞争

Experts say that sun and wind are the richest sources of clean, renewable energy. But ocean waves also create powerful, clean energy. So, the U.S Department of Energy has announced a $1.5 million-dollar prize for the winner of a competition on how to capture that energy.

有专家指出太阳能和风能是最富有的清洁和可再生能源。但是海浪也可以创造强大的清洁能源。所以美国能源部宣布将拨款150万美元奖励给能够掌控这股能源力量的人。

The Department of Energy says that waves and tides along U.S. coasts create about 1,420 terawatt-hours of energy a year. That is equal to the amount of energy produced by more than 330 nuclear power factories.

能源部称美国海岸的海浪和潮汐能够创造每年大约1420万亿瓦时的能量。这相当于330多个核能源工厂产生的能量。

But today's technologies can only capture about 20 percent of the energy from ocean waves. Jose Zayas is the director of the Wind and Water Power Technologies Office at the Department of Energy. He says 20 percent is too low for an investment in ocean wave energy to be economical. He says it needs to be up in the high 30 percent to 40 percent.

但是现在的技术只能从海洋能量中获取20%的能量。Jose Zayas是能源部风能和水能技术办公室的主任。他说20%的能源对于海洋能源投资的经济回报来讲太少。他还说，能源利用率要提高到30%到40%。

"...we believe that once you achieve that then the economic competiveness of this industry really comes to life and that's really the target that we are shooting for."

我们认为一旦达到了要求该行业的经济竞争才能真正服务于生活，这才是我们真正的目的所在。

The Department of Energy has launched the Wave Energy Prize competition to encourage development of new technologies.

能源部已经启动了海浪能源奖项来鼓励人们发展新技术。

But developing new devices to capture wave energy can be difficult. Wave capture machines must operate in oceans

但是发展可以吸收海浪能源的设备是非常困难的。海浪能源设备必须安置在海洋里。

Competition organizers expect most of the new ideas to come from established energy companies as well as some universities and research centers. Mr. Zayas says testing the new technologies will be done in several steps using scaled models. A scaled model is a smaller form of a larger object or structure.

比赛组织者预计大部分新想法会来自于能源公司和一些学校和研究中心。Zayas说新技术测试将会采用比例模型经过几个阶段来进行。比例模型是按照比例将较大物体或者结构缩小之后的物体或结构。

"We would have 1/50th scale testing where we would do the first fundamental evaluation of their performance, as well as making sure that they are on a pathway that can assure them success towards a prize...and near the end, we will have about 10 teams, it is our hope."

我们将采用五十分之一的比例模型来对其性能做出评估，同时确保能够测试成功赢得奖项，在差不多最后阶段，我们希望能有10个队伍。

The scaled models will be tested at the United States Navy's large indoor testing pool near Washington. Machines at the pool can create ocean-size waves. Mr. Zayas says the models will be tested to show how much ocean wave energy they can capture.

这个比例模型将会在华盛顿附近美国海军的大型室内游泳池里进行测试。泳池内的机器将会创造出海浪大小的波动。Zayas说模型将会被测试看看到底能够吸收多少海浪能源。

The competition will not require the machines to produce electrical power. He says changing the mechanical kinetic energy into electrical energy is easy.

比赛不需要机器产生电能。他说机械动能转电能是非常容易的。

Mr. Zayas says the main goal of the Wave Energy Prize is to develop a new set of power producing technologies for the future. Developers of the best performing devices will receive prizes from $250,000 to as much as $1.5 million.

Zayas说海浪能源奖项设立的主要目的是为未来开发一项新能源产生技术。能够生产出最好设备的开发人员能够获得250000美元到150万美元的奖励。

I'm Jonathan Evans.

George Putic reported this story from Washington. Jonathan Evans adapted it for Learning English. Caty Weaver edited it.

______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

assure – v. to make something certain

encourage – v. to make someone more determined, hopeful or confident

evaluation – n. a test

fundamental – adj. forming or relating to the most important part of something

kinetic – adj. of or relating to the movement of physical objects

terawatt - n. a unit of power equal to one trillion watts