高中英语阅读理解拓展之风力发电

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　　Wind Energy -- Energy from Moving Air

　　Wind is simple air in motion. It is caused by the uneven heating of the earth surface by the sun. Since the earth surface is made of very different types of land and water, it absorbs the sun heat at different rates.

　　During the day, the air above the land heats up more quickly than the air over water. The warm air over the land expands and rises, and the heavier, cooler air rushes in to take its place, creating winds. At night, the winds are reversed because the air cools more rapidly over land than over water.

　　In the same way, the large atmospheric winds that circle the earth are created because the land near the earth's equator is heated more by the sun than the land near the North and South Poles.

　　Today, wind energy is mainly used to generate electricity. Wind is called a renewable energy source because the wind will blow as long as the sun shines.

　　The History of Wind

　　Since ancient times, people have harnessed the winds energy. Over 5,000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians used wind to sail ships on the Nile River. Later, people built windmills to grind wheat and other grains. The earliest known windmills were in Persia (Iran). These early windmills looked like large paddle wheels. Centuries later, the people of Holland improved the basic design of the windmill. They gave it propeller-type blades, still made with sails. Holland is famous for its windmills. American colonists used windmills to grind wheat and corn, to pump water, and to cut wood at sawmills. As late as the 1920s, Americans used small windmills to generate electricity in rural areas without electric service. When power lines began to transport electricity to rural areas in the 1930s, local windmills were used less and less, though they can still be seen on some Western ranches.

　　The oil shortages of the 1970s changed the energy picture for the country and the world. It created an interest in alternative energy sources, paving the way for the re-entry of the windmill to generate electricity. In the early 1980s wind energy really took off in California, partly because of state policies that encouraged renewable energy sources. Support for wind development has since spread to other states, but California still produces more than twice as much wind energy as any other state.

　　The first offshore wind park in the United States is planned for an area off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts (read an article about the Cape Cod Wind Project).

　　How Wind Machines Work

　　Like old fashioned windmills, today wind machines use blades to collect the wind kinetic energy. Windmills work because they slow down the speed of the wind. The wind flows over the airfoil shaped blades causing lift, like the effect on airplane wings, causing them to turn. The blades are connected to a drive shaft that turns an electric generator to produce electricity.

　　With the new wind machines, there is still the problem of what to do when the wind is blowing. At those times, other types of power plants must be used to make electricity.

　　Wind Power Plan

　　Wind power plants, or wind farms as they are sometimes called, are clusters of wind machines used to produce electricity. A wind farm usually has dozens of wind machines scattered over a large area. The Big Spring Wind Power Project in Texas has 46 wind turbines that generate enough electricity to power 7,300 homes.

　　Unlike power plants, many wind plants are not owned by public utility companies. Instead they are owned and operated by business people who sell the electricity produced on the wind farm to electric utilities. These private companies are known as Independent Power Producers.

　　Operating a wind power plant is not as simple as just building a windmill in a windy place. Wind plant owners must carefully plan where to locate their machines. One important thing to consider is how fast and how much the wind blows.

　　As a rule, wind speed increases with altitude and over open areas with no windbreaks. Good sites for wind plants are the tops of smooth, rounded hills, open plains or shorelines, and mountain gaps that produce wind funneling.

　　Wind speed varies throughout the country. It also varies from season to season. In Tehachapi, California, the wind blows more from April through October than it does in the winter. This is because of the extreme heating of the Mojave Desert during the summer months. The hot air over the desert rises, and the cooler, denser air above the Pacific Ocean rushes through the Tehachapi mountain pass to take its place. In a state like Montana, on the other hand, the wind blows more during the winter. Fortunately, these seasonal variations are a good match for the electricity demands of the regions. In California, people use more electricity during the summer for air conditioners. In Montana, people use more electricity during the winter months for heating.

　　Wind Production

　　All together, wind machines in the United States generate 17 billion kWh per year of electricity, enough to serve 1.6 million households. This is enough electricity to power a city the size of Chicago, but it is only a small fraction of the nation's total electricity production, about 0.4 percent. The amount of electricity generated from wind has been growing fast in recent years, tripling since 1998. New technologies have decreased the cost of producing electricity from wind, and growth in wind power has been encouraged by tax breaks for renewable energy and green pricing programs. Many utilities around the country offer green pricing options that allow customers the choice to pay more for electricity that comes from renewable sources.

　　Wind machines generate electricity in 30 different states. The states with the most wind production are California, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wyoming.

　　The United States ranks third in the world in wind power capacity, behind Germany and Spain. Most of the wind power plants in the world are located in Europe and in the United States where government programs have helped support wind power development.

　　Wind and the Environment

　　In the 1970s, oil shortages pushed the development of alternative energy sources. In the 1990s, the push came from a renewed concern for the environment in response to scientific studies indicating potential changes to the global climate if the use of fossil fuels continues to increase. Wind energy offers a viable, economical alternative to conventional power plants in many areas of the country. Wind is a clean fuel; wind farms produce no air or water pollution because no fuel is burned.

　　The most serious environmental drawbacks to wind machines may be their negative effect on wild bird populations and the visual impact on the landscape. To some, the glistening blades of windmills on the horizon are an eyesore; to others, they are a beautiful alternative to conventional power plants.

　　风能——来自移动空气的能量

　　风是运动中的简单空气。它是由太阳不均匀地加热地球表面造成的。由于地球表面由不同类型的陆地和水组成，它以不同的速率吸收太阳热量。

　　白天，陆地上的空气比水面上的空气升温更快。陆地上的暖空气膨胀上升，较重的冷空气冲进来取而代之，形成风。在晚上，风是反向的，因为空气在陆地上比在水面上冷却得更快。

　　同样地，环绕地球的大的大气风是因为地球赤道附近的陆地比南北两极附近的陆地更容易被太阳加热而产生的。

　　如今，风能主要用于发电。风被称为可再生能源，因为只要阳光照耀，风就会吹。

　　风的历史

　　自古以来，人们就利用风能。5000多年前，古埃及人用风在尼罗河上驾驶船只。后来，人们建造风车来碾磨小麦和其他谷物。已知最早的风车是在波斯(伊朗)。这些早期的风车看起来像大桨轮。几个世纪后，荷兰人民改进了风车的基本设计。他们给了它螺旋桨式的叶片，仍然用帆制成。荷兰以风车闻名。美国殖民者用风车碾磨小麦和玉米，抽水，在锯木厂砍柴。早在20世纪20年代，美国人就在没有电力服务的农村地区使用小型风车发电。上世纪30年代，当电力线开始向农村地区输送电力时，当地的风车使用越来越少，不过在一些西方牧场上仍然可以看到风车。

　　20世纪70年代的石油短缺改变了这个国家和世界的能源状况。它引起了人们对替代能源的兴趣，为风车重新进入发电领域铺平了道路。20世纪80年代初，风能在加利福尼亚州真正兴起，部分原因是加州鼓励使用可再生能源的政策。对风能开发的支持已经扩展到其他州，但加州的风能产量仍然是其他州的两倍多。

　　美国第一个海上风电场计划建在马萨诸塞州科德角海岸附近的地区(阅读一篇关于科德角风电场项目的文章)。

　　风力机的工作原理

　　像老式的风车一样，今天的风力机使用叶片来收集风能。风车工作是因为它们减慢了风速。风在翼型叶片上流动，引起升力，就像对飞机机翼的影响一样，使它们转动。叶片与驱动轴相连，驱动轴转动发电机发电。

　　有了新的风力机，还存在着风吹时该怎么办的问题。那时，必须使用其他类型的发电厂发电。

　　风力发电计划

　　风力发电厂，或有时被称为风电场，是用来发电的风力机集群。一个风电场通常有几十台风力机分散在一个大的区域。德克萨斯州的大春风电项目有46个风力涡轮机，它们产生的电力足以为7300户家庭供电。

　　与发电厂不同的是，许多风力发电厂并非由公用事业公司所有。取而代之的是，它们由商人拥有和经营，他们将风力发电厂生产的电力出售给电力公司。这些私营公司被称为独立发电商。

　　操作风力发电厂并不像在有风的地方建一个风车那么简单。风力发电厂所有者必须仔细规划机器的位置。需要考虑的一个重要问题是风速有多快。

　　一般来说，风速随着海拔高度和没有防风林的开阔地区而增加。风力发电厂的好地点是平滑的圆形山丘、开阔的平原或海岸线以及产生风漏斗的山间隙的顶部。

　　全国各地风速不一。它也因季节而异。在加州的特哈查比，从4月到10月的风比冬天刮得多。这是因为夏季莫哈韦沙漠的极端高温。沙漠上空的热空气上升，太平洋上空更冷、密度更大的空气冲进特哈查皮山口取而代之。另一方面，在蒙大拿州这样的州，冬天风刮得更多。幸运的是，这些季节变化很好地满足了这些地区的电力需求。在加利福尼亚，人们在夏天用更多的电来开空调。在蒙大拿州，人们在冬季用更多的电取暖。

　　风力发电

　　美国的风机每年总共发电170亿千瓦时，足以服务160万户家庭。这足以为芝加哥这样大的城市提供电力，但它只占全国总发电量的一小部分，约为0.4%。近年来，风力发电量增长迅速，自1998年以来增长了两倍。新技术降低了风力发电的成本，可再生能源税收减免和绿色定价计划也鼓励了风力发电的增长。全国各地的许多公用事业公司都提供绿色定价方案，让客户可以选择支付更多来自可再生能源的电力。

　　风力机在30个不同的州发电。风力发电最多的州是加利福尼亚州、德克萨斯州、明尼苏达州、爱荷华州和怀俄明州。

　　美国的风力发电能力位居世界第三，仅次于德国和西班牙。世界上大多数风力发电厂都位于欧洲和美国，在那里，政府项目帮助支持风力发电的发展。

　　风与环境

　　20世纪70年代，石油短缺推动了替代能源的发展。上世纪90年代，科学研究表明，如果化石燃料的使用继续增加，全球气候可能会发生变化，而人们对环境的重新关注正是对此的回应。在中国的许多地区，风能为传统发电厂提供了一种可行、经济的替代方案。风是一种清洁的燃料;风电场不会产生空气或水污染，因为没有燃料被燃烧。

　　风力机最严重的环境缺陷可能是其对野生鸟类种群的负面影响和对景观的视觉影响。对一些人来说，地平线上闪闪发光的风车叶片令人眼花缭乱;对另一些人来说，它们是传统发电厂的美丽替代品。