-
(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
He made his fortune in oil, but energy tycoon1 T. Boone Pickens has now embarked2 on a national public relations campaign to move the country away from oil and towards a renewable energy future. But, as VOA's Greg Flakus reports from Houston, many energy experts are skeptical3 about his proposals.
Row of wind turbines in rural Iowa
In a video message broadcast on television and the Internet, T. Boone Pickens is warning the people of the United States about the looming4 energy crisis the country faces.
"We do not need any more talk," he said. "We need action and we need a plan and it has got to be the top priority of the next president and the next Congress. I am T. Boone Pickens. I have been an oil man my whole life, but this is one emergency we cannot drill our way out of."
In his campaign, Pickens says that the United States is sending some $700 billion a year to overseas oil producers because U.S. production has fallen far behind domestic demand. In lectures he has posted online, Pickens explains how oil use could be diminished by switching 22 percent of electrical generation from natural gas-driven generators5 to wind generators and then using the natural gas for transportation.
T. Boone Pickens
"We are going to take this 22 percent and we are going to get it out of power generation, because we are going to get 22 percent from wind and move the natural gas out," he explained. "We know it works for transportation fuel, [there are] eight million vehicles in the world operating on natural gas right now."
Pickens says this would offset6 38 percent of the petroleum7 the United States is now importing and, at current prices, save the nation $300 billion a year.
But Pickens has ruffled8 many of his colleagues in the oil industry by suggesting that searching for more oil here at home is not part of the answer. Brian Kennedy of the Institute for Energy Research says Pickens went too far when he disparaged9 the idea of more domestic drilling.
"I think it is a misleading sound bite, frankly10. What we need to do is increase the production of all forms of economically viable11 energy that we have in this country," he said. "Drilling is certainly a massive part of that."
Kennedy supports President Bush's call for more exploration and development off U.S. coasts in areas that Congress has placed off limits. He says the country will need that oil in the years ahead, because alternative energies are unlikely to fill the gap.
"We are going to be an economy that is petrochemical based for the foreseeable future," he added. "To pretend that we are not, while it may make some people feel good, is going to be very hurtful to our economy and our consumers."
Kennedy notes that renewable fuels make up only about six percent of energy supply in the United States now in spite of decades of investment and research. He notes that each energy source has its own problems. For example, the wind power Pickens touts12 is dependent on the wind blowing all the time and the areas where the wind blows the most tend to be far from the urban centers where the electrical power is needed.
Pickens has invested his own money in a $10-billion project to create the world's largest wind farm in the Texas panhandle. He says he will build the transmission lines to get that power to the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan13 area if state officials fail to provide the proper infrastructure14. Pickens estimates that he will be able to light 300,000 homes with the power generated by his wind turbines.
The Pickens plan to shift vehicles from petroleum to natural gas faces criticism as well. Automakers have failed to embrace the idea in spite of numerous attempts by Pickens to convince them. Natural gas is also a limited resource, according to Gal15 Luft, director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.
"It is not really clear to me where is the strategic benefit from shifting millions and millions of cars from one resource to another when both resources are so problematic," he said.
Luft says using natural gas to power vehicles would soon lead back to heavy reliance on imports. He says a better strategy would involve moving away from dependence16 on fossil fuels by promoting a wide variety of alternatives.
"Let's open the market and allow several sources of energy to compete against each other. Once you have this competition, once you have cars that are, in fact, platforms in which fuels can compete, the market will sort itself out in a way that those that make economic sense will prevail and, hopefully, it will be energy resources we can develop domestically," he explained.
Energy has emerged as a hot topic in this year's presidential election. T. Boone Pickens, for one, would like an even stronger focus on the issue. He plans to meet with officials in Washington to promote his plan and he is relying on his ad campaign to build public support behind him.
收听单词发音 |
1
tycoon
|
|
| n.有钱有势的企业家，大亨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
embarked
|
|
| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
skeptical
|
|
| adj.怀疑的，多疑的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
looming
|
|
| n.上现蜃景（光通过低层大气发生异常折射形成的一种海市蜃楼）v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的现在分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
generators
|
|
| n.发电机，发生器( generator的名词复数 )；电力公司 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
offset
|
|
| n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
petroleum
|
|
| n.原油，石油 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
ruffled
|
|
| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
disparaged
|
|
| v.轻视( disparage的过去式和过去分词 )；贬低；批评；非难 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
viable
|
|
| adj.可行的，切实可行的，能活下去的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
touts
|
|
| n.招徕( tout的名词复数 )；（音乐会、体育比赛等的）卖高价票的人；侦查者；探听赛马的情报v.兜售( tout的第三人称单数 )；招揽；侦查；探听赛马情报 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
metropolitan
|
|
| adj.大城市的，大都会的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
infrastructure
|
|
| n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
gal
|
|
| n.姑娘，少女 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
dependence
|
|
| n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
购买
在百度中搜索