TED演讲:恐惧核能是怎样伤害环境的(4)

 That's why when, in California, we try to deal with all the solar we've brought online 这就是为什么在加州，我们正在尝试太阳能的完全使用，

we now get about 10 percent of electricity from solar 我们现在能够从太阳能获得大约10%的电力，

when the sun goes down, and people come home from work and turn on their air conditioners and their TV sets,  当太阳下山时，人们下班回家打开空调和电视

and every other appliance in the house, we need a lot of natural gas backup.  和其他家中电器时，我们仍需要大量天然气储备。

So what we've been doing is stuffing a lot of natural gas into the side of a mountain. 所以我们一直以来做的，就是把天然气贮存在山脊里。

And that worked pretty well for a while, but then late last year, it sprung a leak. This is Aliso Canyon¹. 这个计划的确在一段时间里成功了，直至去年它发生了泄漏。这是阿灵所峡谷。

And so much methane² gas was released, it was the equivalent of putting half a million cars on the road. 大量的甲烷被释放，相当于五十万辆行驶汽车的排放量。

It basically blew through all of our climate commitments for the year. 就这样，它就轻松打破了那年排放预算。

Well, what about India? Sometimes you have to go places to really get the right data, so we traveled to India a few months ago. 好吧，印度的情况又怎样呢？有时，你是需要实地收集真实数据的，所以我们几个月前去了印度。

We met with all the top officials -- solar, nuclear, the rest -- and what they told us is, 我们会见了政府中所有跟太阳能、核能及其他能源有关的高级官员，他们告诉我：

"We're actually having more serious problems than both Germany and California. “我们这儿的问题，比德国和加州更严峻。

We don't have backup; we don't have all the natural gas.  我们没有后备贮藏，也没有那么多天然气。

And that's just the start of it. Say we want to get to 100 gigawatts by 2022.  然而这只是问题的一小部分。举个例子，我们想在2022年产生一千亿瓦特的电量。

But last year we did just five, and the year before that, we did five." 但是去年我们却只产生了五十亿瓦特，前年，我们也只产生了五十亿瓦特。”

1 canyon   

n.峡谷，溪谷

参考例句：

• The Grand Canyon in the USA is 1900 metres deep.美国的大峡谷1900米深。
• The canyon is famous for producing echoes.这个峡谷以回声而闻名。

2 methane   

n.甲烷，沼气

参考例句：

• The blast was caused by pockets of methane gas that ignited.爆炸是由数袋甲烷气体着火引起的。
• Methane may have extraterrestrial significance.甲烷具有星际意义。