VOA慢速英语 Technology Report - Turning Industrial Waste-Heat Into Electricity

 

Technology Report - Turning Industrial Waste-Heat Into Electricity

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

Scientists say enough energy is being wasted in the oil and gas fields of Texas every year to provide electricity to one hundred thousand homes. Businessman Loy Sneary says he is using that waste to create a profitable company called Gulf¹ Coast Green Energy.

Mr. Sneary says sixty percent of all energy produced in the world today is being lost as wasted heat. He wants to capture some of that heat from -- among other places -- the thousands of oil and gas wells in Texas, and turn it into electricity.

LOY SNEARY: “We’ve got more electricity that could be generated than all of the coal-fired power plants, natural gas fired power plants and nuclear power plants in the world. That’s what the potential is.”

Deep underground, the earth is hot. If you drive a drill down into hard rock or shale², the drill bit gets hot. Mr. Sneary uses his “Green Machine” technology to help capture the energy that is produced when heat meets cold. The machine moves the hot well-water through one pipe next to another filled with a cooling material called refrigerant. This refrigerant boils, and steam is produced. This steam is used to make electricity.

LOY SNEARY: “And so we can take these lower temperatures, hot water sources, transfer the heat, and then once that refrigerant is expanded and pressurized, from there on it’s just like a steam turbine.”

It is not just oil and gas wells that can provide waste heat for the Green Energy machines to use to make electricity. The heat-recycling technology can work with solar energy collectors, coal-fired power plants and internal combustion³ engines -- almost any industrial process that produces waste heat.

Last year, Mr. Sneary connected his device to the boilers⁴ at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He used that system’s waste heat to create electricity, helping⁵ to reduce the university’s utility bills.

Maria Richards is SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory Coordinator⁶. She says the lab’s temperature maps help Mr. Sneary find hot areas near petroleum⁷ drilling operations. Those areas are where Mr. Sneary can deploy⁸ his machines. The school and Gulf Coast Green Energy have worked together for several years.

MARIA RICHARDS: “There is so much heat in the Gulf Coast, and that made us realize that by working with the oil and gas wells, it was an ability to tap into those resources.”

LOY SNEARY: “The research that the SMU Geothermal Lab has done has allowed us to target the areas where there is adequate heat in these oil and gas wells to be able to be utilized⁹.”

Loy Sneary is now negotiating with drillers in Texas and is working on a project in West Virginia. He also is looking at other states.

And that’s the VOA Special English Technology Report. I’m Christopher Cruise.

1 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

2 shale   

n.页岩，泥板岩

参考例句：

• We can extract oil from shale.我们可以从页岩中提取石油。
• Most of the rock in this mountain is shale.这座山上大部分的岩石都是页岩。

3 combustion   

n.燃烧；氧化；骚动

参考例句：

• We might be tempted to think of combustion.我们也许会联想到氧化。
• The smoke formed by their combustion is negligible.由它燃烧所生成的烟是可忽略的。

4 boilers   

锅炉，烧水器，水壶( boiler的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Even then the boilers often burst or came apart at the seams. 甚至那时的锅炉也经常从焊接处爆炸或裂开。 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史
• The clean coal is sent to a crusher and the boilers. 干净的煤送入破碎机和锅炉。

5 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

6 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？

7 petroleum   

n.原油，石油

参考例句：

• The Government of Iran advanced the price of petroleum last week.上星期伊朗政府提高了石油价格。
• The purpose of oil refinery is to refine crude petroleum.炼油厂的主要工作是提炼原油。

8 deploy   

v.（军）散开成战斗队形，布置，展开

参考例句：

• The infantry began to deploy at dawn.步兵黎明时开始进入战斗位置。
• The president said he had no intention of deploying ground troops.总统称并不打算部署地面部队。

9 utilized   

v.利用，使用( utilize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• In the19th century waterpower was widely utilized to generate electricity. 在19世纪人们大规模使用水力来发电。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The empty building can be utilized for city storage. 可以利用那栋空建筑物作城市的仓库。 来自《简明英汉词典》