1. 解决方案

在经济学人英国能源危机How long till the lights go out? 灯还能亮多久？电荒中提出两个解决方案

With gas too risky, coal too dirty, nuclear too slow and renewables too unreliable, Britain is in a bind（陷入困境）. What can it do to get out of it? At this stage, there is no lightning-bolt solution, but two things would prevent matters from getting worse.

天然气太没保障，煤炭太污染环境，核电站投入使用需要太长时间，可再生新能源太不可靠，英国陷入了左右为难的困境.怎样才能摆脱这个困境呢？目前，没有速成的解决方法，但是有两个途径可以防止情况变得更糟.

The first has to do with infrastructure. Companies must be cajoled or bribed into building gas storage. At the moment there is barely a week’s worth, so there is nothing to lessen the impact of price rises and the shenanigans of foreign powers. More cross-Channel power cables would help, allowing Britain to import electricity directly from its better-supplied neighbours (and also helping create a Europe-wide power grid, thus improving security for all EU members).

第一是搞好基础设施.必须好言利诱公司建设油气存储设施.目前的存储量仅够一星期，所以不能减缓价格上升的压力，也不能减轻来自外国能源提供方的威压.交叉的电力电缆会起到作用，能让英国从富庶的邻国直接进口电力（且可以形成欧洲境内电力网，让所有欧盟成员国更安全）

Second, carbon must be taxed if firms are to invest in long-term, expensive, technology-heavy projects such as nuclear plants, cleaning up coal and taming renewable sources of power. Carbon is already assigned a price through the European cap-and-trade mechanism, but the system is focused on the short term, vulnerable to gaming and plagued by hugely fluctuating prices. A tax on carbon is hardly going to stop the lights going out in a few years, but it would provide a floor price for power, giving investors a clearer sense of likely profits. In the meantime you know who to blame.

第二，如果私人公司打算投资长期的，耗费高的项目，如核电厂，清洁煤，可驾驭的可再生能源，那么政府必须对碳征税.欧洲碳限额交易机制已经给碳定出了价格，但是这个机制主要关注的是短期目标，在博弈中处于下风，很容易受价格大幅度波动的危害.未来几年内，对碳征税并不能阻止灯逐渐熄灭，但是这会给能源定个底价，让投资者们对盈利可能性有更清晰的概念.同时谁该承担责任也明了了.

（2）可再生能源的开发利用的素材可以参考经济学人《该不该进行能力资源开发》 中这段论述

Greater success is breeding greater ambition. California is proposing to reach 60% renewable energy by 2030; 176 countries have clean-energy goals. Hawaii, America’s most oil-dependent state, has pledged to be 100% renewable by the middle of the century. So have 48 poor countries vulnerable to[易受...的影响] climate change. This week the number of multinationals making a commitment to running their operations on 100% renewable energy rose to 100.

更大的成功孕育更大的野心。加利福尼亚提议在2030年时可再生能源将达到60%，176个国家有着清洁能源的目标。美国最依赖石油的州，夏威夷，保证在这个世纪中叶将100%使用可再生能源。所以只有48个贫穷国家易受气候变化的影响。本周，承诺将100%使用可再生能源运营其业务的跨国公司增至100家。

本段是讲了对可再生资源的投入，本段列举了加利福尼亚州 到2030 年目标； 夏威夷 到20世纪中叶的目标； 176个国家和许多跨国公司的行动。

（3）目前最新的可能性方案---可燃冰：有可能成为未来的能源

There’s no doubt that methane hydrates could offer a major source of fuel, with recent estimates suggesting they constitute about a third of the total carbon held in other fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. Several nations, notably Japan, want to extract it. It is not hard to find, often leaving a characteristic seismic signature that can be detected by research vessels. The problem is retrieving that gas and bringing it to the surface. 

毫无疑问，甲烷水合物可能会成为一种主要的燃料来源。最近有人估计，它们大约相当于石油、天然气和煤炭等其他化石燃料储藏的总碳量的三分之一。多个国家，尤其是日本，希望对其进行开采。找到甲烷水合物并不难，它们通常会留下一种勘察船能够以震测方式发现的特征。真正的挑战在于分离甲烷并将其输送到海面。

This source of carbon, the most abundant in the world, may be one of the last new forms of fossil fuel to be extracted on a commercial scale. It is also the only one to be developed with the end of fossil fuels in sight. The race for methane hydrates is a unique one, where researchers are working towards a goal that might be made irrelevant by renewables by the time they reach it.

作为世界上最丰富的碳来源，甲烷水合物可能是最后一批即将面临商业化开采的新型化石燃料，也是唯一一种在化石燃料时代即将终结时才进场的化石燃料。各国争抢开采甲烷水合物可说是最特别的能源争夺战，因为可能还没有等到现在的开采研究出到成果，可燃冰就因为可再生能源成为主流而变得无关紧要。

For this reason, methane hydrates may well have a shelf life, but it remains to be seen whether Japan, and other countries pursuing them, will be able to get to them on a sufficiently large scale before they’ve already become expendable.

因此，甲烷水合物很可能只是一种以备不时之需的能源。但日本和其他谋求开发甲烷水合物的国家是否能够赶在这种能源变得无关紧要之前实现大规模开采，还有待观察。

（4）2017年经济学人一篇文章 Clean energy and ecology清洁能源与生态

      Offshore wind farms will change life in the sea海上风电场将改变海洋生物

      Flexing the mussels展示力量

可用来当做解决方案，当然每个解决方案都没有完美之说。

    海上风电场能产生清洁能源，降低二氧化碳但对野生动物也会产生影响。

IN THE North Sea, wind power is booming. At the moment the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, with a capacity of 630MW, sits in the Thames Estuary. But the London Array, as this farm is known, will not hold the record for long. Another farm, over twice the size, is under construction off the coast of Yorkshire. Of the six countries with the most installed offshore capacity, five are part of the North Sea’s littoral. (The exception is China.) Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a research firm that keeps a close eye on the industry, reckons the world’s offshore wind-generation capacity will quadruple by 2025.

在北海，风能正在迅猛发展。目前全球最大的海上风电场坐落于泰晤士河口，装机容量630兆瓦。但这座名为“伦敦阵列”的风电场的世界纪录不会保持太久。在约克郡沿海，另一座风电场正在建造当中，面积是其一倍。在海上风电装机容量最大的六个国家中，五个是北海沿岸国家（中国例外）。“彭博新能源财经”调查公司密切关注该产业的发展，预测2025年全球海上风电容量将翻两番。

Given the need to cut carbon emissions, that is welcome news. But, just because wind turbines produce little carbon dioxide does not mean they have no environmental impact. In a study posted on the arXiv, an online repository of scientific papers, Kaela Slavik and her colleagues at the Helmholtz Centre for Materials and Coastal Research, in Geesthacht, Germany, explore the effects that the turbines might have on local wildlife.

鉴于减少碳排放的需要，这条新闻令人高兴。但风力涡轮机不排放二氧化碳不意味着对环境没有影响。凯拉•斯拉维克及其同事任职于德国盖斯特哈赫特的“赫尔姆霍茨材料与海岸研究中心”，她们在科学文献库arXiv网站上发表的研究报告中，探讨了风力涡轮机对当地野生动物可能产生的影响。

2. 结尾综述

在经济学人China is developing its clean-energy technology 中，结尾是以提出两种可能做出综述的：

If China’s growth in clean-energy technology leads to more protectionism, along the lines of the Trump administration’s move in January against imports of solar panels, clean tech could become a trade battleground. The same could happen if China denies Western energy technology a meaningful place in its markets (as it has done with American internet firms) or restricts access to its rare earths. But technology also provides scope for collaboration. If America, the EU and China can build that into the transition to renewables, energy geopolitics will start to look a lot more promising.

                  看完文章框架我们来学习几个有关环境的精彩表达

1. 天方夜谭 怎么说？

在2017年经济学人《清洁能源》中的一段

ALMOST 150 years after photovoltaic cells（光电电池） and wind turbines（涡轮机） were invented, they still generate only 7% of the world’s electricity. Yet something remarkable is happening. From being peripheral to the energy system just over a decade ago, they are now growing faster than any other energy source and their falling costs are making them competitive with fossil fuels（化石燃料）. BP, an oil firm, expects renewables to account for half of the growth in global energy supply over the next 20 years. It is no longer far-fetched to think that the world is entering an era of clean, unlimited and cheap power. About time, too.

光伏电池和风力发电机发明近150年后，它们的发电量仍只占全球总量的7%。然而，某些显著变化正在发生。十多年前可再生能源还是次要的能源系统，但现在它们的增长速度超过其他任何能源，成本的下降也使之能够与化石燃料相抗衡。石油公司BP预计，未来20年内可再生能源将占全球能源供应增长的一半。认为世界正在进入一个清洁、廉价和电力无限供应的时代的想法已不再是天方夜谭。而且也是时候了。

far-'fetched  牵强的; 不可信的; 靠不住的

2017年经济学人一篇文章中有这样的用法

So the Gallup numbers could just as well be too low. Today there are 1.4bn people in rich countries and 6bn in not-so-rich ones. It is hardly far-fetched to imagine that, over a few decades, a billion or more of those people might emigrate if there were no legal obstacle to doing so. Clearly, this would transform rich countries in unpredictable ways.

2. 抑制，阻碍有哪些表达？

除了单词bar, block, obstruct, impede, hinder, hamper, thwart, stymie, get in the way 等还有哪些？

Policymakers are already seeing this inconvenient truth as a reason to put the brakeson renewable energy. In parts of Europe and China, investment in renewables is slowing as subsidies are cut back. However, the solution is not less wind and solar. It is to rethink how the world prices clean energy in order to make better use of it.

政策制定者已经把这一“难以忽视的真相”视为限制可再生能源的理由。在欧洲部分地区和中国，由于补贴减少，对可再生能源的投资正在放缓。不过解决问题的方法不是减少风能和太阳能，而是要重新思考清洁能源的定价问题，以便更好地利用这些能源。

Put a brake on =dab the brakes 表示 “对……进行刹车”。引申含义“阻止”、“遏制”、“缩减”、“延缓”、“抑制”、“停止”等意思。

【例句】This and other difficult but important steps that we have taken over the last six month have helped us put the brakes on he recession.   在过去六个月里，我们采取的这次和其他艰难而重要的措施已经帮助我们制止住了经济衰退。

build/erect/setup/put up a barrier to 设置障碍

Many San Franciscans think that the solution is to emulate[2] the Empire State Building, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, St Peter's basilica[3] and other such places and put up a simple barrier. 许多旧金山人认为，解决这一问题的办法就是要仿效帝国大厦、悉尼港湾大桥、埃菲尔铁塔、圣彼得大教堂和其它一些地方的做法，建造一个简易的防自杀屏障

Cut back 减少，缩减的意思

3.无法避免出现  如何清新脱俗？

At its heart, the problem is that government-supported renewable energy has been imposed on a market designed in a different era. For much of the 20th century, electricity was made and moved by vertically integrated, state-controlled monopolies. From the 1980s onwards（一直）, many of these were broken up, privatised and liberalised, so that market forces could determine where best to invest. Today only about 6% of electricity users get their power from monopolies. Yet everywhere the pressure to decarbonise power supply has brought the state creeping back into markets. This is disruptive for three reasons. The first is the subsidy system itself. The other two are inherent to the nature(本质） of wind and solar: their intermittency and their very low running costs. All three help explain why power prices are low and public subsidies are addictive.

系统震撼

问题的核心是，政府支持的可再生能源被强加在一个设计于不同时代的电力市场上。在20世纪的大部分时间里，电力都是由垂直整合的国有垄断企业生产和传送。20世纪80年代开始，很多垄断电力企业被拆分、私有化和自由化，让市场力量可以决定最佳投资方向。如今，只有约6%的用户由垄断企业提供电力。然而，各地要求低碳电力供应的压力让国家的影响又重新蔓延到各个市场之中。这是具有破坏性的，原因有三：第一是补贴制度本身；另外两个原因与风能和太阳能自身的特点有关：这两种能源是间歇性供应的，且运行成本非常低。这三点都有助于解释为什么电力价格低，而公共补贴却难以戒停。

Creep in/ creep into sth （错误）不知不觉地存在，无法避免出现

•A few mistakes always creep in during the editing process.

4. 必然结果 怎么表达？

The corollary is that the electricity system is being re-regulated as investment goes chiefly to areas that benefit from public support. Paradoxically, that means the more states support renewables, the more they pay for conventional power plants, too, using “capacity payments” to alleviate intermittency. In effect, politicians rather than markets are once again deciding how to avoid blackouts（断电）. They often make mistakes: Germany’s support for cheap, dirty lignite caused emissions to rise,notwithstanding（尽管：有介词和副词之分） huge subsidies for renewables. Without a new approach the renewables revolution will stall（暂缓，搁置）.

必然结果是，投资主要流向了受益于政府支持的领域，而电力系统正在重新受到监管。吊诡的是，国家对可再生能源的支持越多，对传统发电厂的补贴也就越多，因为政府需要支付“保持产能费用”来缓解清洁能源间歇性供电的问题。实际上，现在又换成政客而不是市场来决定如何避免停电了。然而政客却经常犯错：德国尽管对可再生能源提供巨额补贴，但仍支持低价、肮脏的褐煤发电，导致排放量上升。没有新的方法，可再生能源革命就会后劲不足。

 Corollary to/ of , the corollary is that...必然的结果（直接推论）

5. 消除 怎么出奇新意？

除了eliminate, remove,dispel, clear up, work out，get rid of 之外的一个好词

The good news is that new technology can help fix the problem. Digitalisation, smart meters（仪） and batteries are enabling companies and households to smooth out their demand—by doing some energy-intensive work at night, for example. This helps to cope with intermittent supply. Small, modular power plants, which are easy to flex up or down, are becoming more popular, as are high-voltage grids（高压电网） that can move excess power around the network more efficiently.

好消息是新技术可以帮助解决这个问题。数字化、智能电表和电池使公司和家庭能够调节需求，例如在夜间做耗电多的工作，这有助于应对间歇性电力供应的问题。小型模块化的发电厂容易调节发电量，高压电网也可以更有效地在电网上调配多余的电力，这些也都变得越来越受欢迎。

smooth out消除，摆脱〔问题或困难〕

在经济学人《气候变化与尼罗河:洪水和饥荒》 中有这么一段

These colossal climatic oscillations, driven by changes in the temperature of the Pacific, are correlated with the Nile's flow, and climate-change studies suggesting more extreme El Ninos in years to come thus bolster the idea of a more variable Nile.More storage capacity will be needed to smooth out the Nile's flow.

在太平洋的温度变化驱动下，这些巨大的气候变化与尼罗河的流量相关，并且气候变化的研究表明近年来将出现更加极端的厄尔尼诺现象，从而印证了更可变的尼罗河流量的说法。

因此需要存储更多的水量来缓解尼罗河的流量变化。

 表达小结：

1. Far-fetched 牵强附会的，不可信的 

写作句型： It is hardly far-fetched to imagine that...

2. Put a brake on =dab the brakes 阻碍，抑制

  put up a barrier to

  Cut back/curtail

3. Creep into 无法避免出现

4.  The corollary is that 必然结果是......[写作推荐]  

5. smooth out 消除，摆脱

   Work out, get rid of , solve ,clear up