VOA标准英语2010年-Engineer Develops 'Cleaner' Products f

Bryan Wilson works to cut pollution from cookstoves, two-stroke engines, diesel¹

Shelley Schlender | Fort Collins, Colorado 10 May 2010
 

Engineer Bryan Willson is developing cleaner-running, more energy-efficient products for people in the developing world.

Related Links

 

Superclusters Clean Energy
Engines and Energy Conversion² Lab
Envirofit

Even as a boy, Colorado State University engineer Bryan Willson says he was a tinkerer.

"I remember taking apart clocks and just about anything that had screws in it," he says. "That's the hallmark of an engineer is someone who's always trying to improve something."

Improving the human condition

As a graduate student, Willson was inspired to improve the human condition when he won a scholarship to study in India. He recalls the moment his plane began its final descent into the airport in New Dehli.

"As we got a few feet above the ground, you could begin to actually taste the air because of the unbelievable amount of pollution. And I recognized that there were really three sources to that: burning of wood, dirty diesel engines and two-stroke engines."

That experience led Willson to a lifelong mission of getting cleaner, more efficient energy to people in developing nations.

The rumbling³ machines at his Engines and Energy Conversion Laboratory are the key to that endeavor. Willson's team has developed a cookstove that produces less smoke for burning wood or any other fuel.

This woman in India uses a cookstove developed by Willson's team that produces less smoke for burning wood or any other fuel.

 

Cleaner cookstove

 

"It may be wood, dung, crop residues," says Willson. "We got a box from a colleague at M.I.T. containing yak⁴ dung. I didn't ask how she got it through the airport."

Willson himself goes through many airports to meet with businessmen, government officials and professors in Delhi and Bangalore and he treks⁵ into remote villages to explain the benefits of clean-burning stoves.

He's also making more trips to China, which is why he's learning Mandarin⁶.

"Over the next 25 years, energy use will go up by 100 percent in China and probably 160 percent in India. If we're working on global solutions on energy and climate change, we really need to be engaged internationally."

Health impact

In addition to slowing climate change, Willson's cookstoves can can have a big impact on public health, according to Morgan DeFoort, co-director of the Engines Lab.

"Two to three billion people in the world cook on biomass fuels every day and most of that happens inside the home or in a three-sided enclosure that exposes women and children, primarily, to levels of air pollution that are easily a hundred times higher than the minimum standard set by the World Health Organization," says DeFoort.

Worldwide, respiratory illness caused by cookstove smoke kills as many people as malaria⁷ each year. DeFoort says the Engine Lab's version could change that.

"That device can save up to 50 percent of the fuel wood that is typically used by an Indian family cooking. It can reduce the emissions⁸ that they're exposed to by 80 percent.".

To build a market for his clean-burning products, Bryan Willson cofounded Envirofit.

The company focuses on developing environmentally friendly products to meet local needs in developing nations, starting with high-quality manufacturing, then setting up distribution and often microfinance to allow widespread dissemination⁹. Envirofit has sold more than 125,000 of the clean-burning cookstoves and is increasing its capacity to soon sell millions.

Two-stroke engines, which are common in the developing world, emit the same amount of pollution as 50 modern automobiles¹⁰. Envirofit offers a retrofit product that reduces their emissions by 90 percent and ups fuel efficiency by 45 percent.

Two-stroke engines

 

Willson is also focused on cleaning up the smoky, two-stroke engines that power many motorbikes, taxis and other vehicles in developing nations.

"In raw terms, a two-stroke engine puts out the pollution of about 50 modern automobiles, and you're looking at 50 to 100 million two- stroke engines, just in South Asia," says Willson. "So you're looking at over 2 1/2 billion car equivalents of pollution.

To change this, Envirofit offers a retrofit product that reduces two-stroke engine emissions by 90 percent, while increasing fuel efficiency by 45 percent.

Diesel pollution

Willson's team has also created ways to reduce diesel pollution.

They're researching how to grow acres of tiny algae¹¹ plants for affordable¹², carbon-neutral biodiesel. And his team is testing energy smartgrids that might soon get electricity to the two billion people who don't have any.

Engine Labs Engineering Manager, Kirk Evans, says working on these projects is fun.

"Bryan is probably one of the greater visionaries in this type of work in our time," says Evans. "Just when you think you've tapped the back, he comes up with something new."

For his efforts at coming up with something new, Bryan Willson is listed among the inaugural¹³ Scientific American 10 - ten researchers, politicians, business executives and philanthropists chosen by Scientic American magazine, who have made a significant contribution to guiding science to serve humanity on a global basis.
 

1 diesel   

n.柴油发动机，内燃机

参考例句：

• We experimented with diesel engines to drive the pumps.我们试着用柴油机来带动水泵。
• My tractor operates on diesel oil.我的那台拖拉机用柴油开动。

2 conversion   

n.转化，转换，转变

参考例句：

• He underwent quite a conversion.他彻底变了。
• Waste conversion is a part of the production process.废物处理是生产过程的一个组成部分。

3 rumbling   

n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词

参考例句：

• The earthquake began with a deep [low] rumbling sound. 地震开始时发出低沉的隆隆声。
• The crane made rumbling sound. 吊车发出隆隆的响声。

4 yak   

n.牦牛

参考例句：

• The most common materials Tibetan jewelry are Yak bone.藏饰最常见的材料当属牦牛骨。
• We can sell yak skin,meat and wool.我们可以卖牦牛的皮、肉和毛。

5 treks   

n.远距离行走 ( trek的名词复数 )；长途跋涉，艰难的旅程（尤指在山区）v.艰苦跋涉，徒步旅行( trek的第三人称单数 )；（尤指在山中）远足，徒步旅行，游山玩水

参考例句：

• And visiting companies and completing job treks are becoming much more important in the job search. 参观公司、进行实地考察在找工作中变得重要得多。 来自互联网
• These range from treks around Mont an ascent of North Africa's highest mountain, Mount Toubkal. 参与者是徒步绕勃朗峰，然后攀登北非最高峰托布卡尔山。 来自互联网

6 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

7 malaria   

n.疟疾

参考例句：

• He had frequent attacks of malaria.他常患疟疾。
• Malaria is a kind of serious malady.疟疾是一种严重的疾病。

8 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

9 dissemination   

传播,宣传,传染(病毒)

参考例句：

• The dissemination of error does people great harm. 谬种流传，误人不浅。
• He was fully bent upon the dissemination of Chinese culture all over the world. 他一心致力于向全世界传播中国文化。

10 automobiles   

n.汽车( automobile的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• When automobiles become popular,the use of the horse and buggy passed away. 汽车普及后，就不再使用马和马车了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Automobiles speed in an endless stream along the boulevard. 宽阔的林荫道上，汽车川流不息。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

11 algae   

n.水藻，海藻

参考例句：

• Most algae live in water.多数藻类生长在水中。
• Algae grow and spread quickly in the lake.湖中水藻滋蔓。

12 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

13 inaugural   

adj.就职的；n.就职典礼

参考例句：

• We listened to the President's inaugural speech on the radio yesterday.昨天我们通过无线电听了总统的就职演说。
• Professor Pearson gave the inaugural lecture in the new lecture theatre.皮尔逊教授在新的阶梯讲堂发表了启用演说。