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美国国家公共电台 NPR North Carolina Tries To Clean Up Its Electricity

时间:2019-07-03 05:44来源:互联网 提供网友:nan   字体: [ ]
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SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:

Let's say you want to help stop global warming by using less gasoline. You get an electric car. You go charge it up. And then you think, wait, where's this electricity coming from? Nationwide, 60% of it comes from power plants burning coal and natural gas, which produce carbon dioxide. So can the companies that provide our electricity change that? NPR's Dan Charles went to North Carolina to find out.

DAN CHARLES, BYLINE1: North Carolina's governor, Roy Cooper, made a big announcement last fall.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

ROY COOPER: Today, I will sign an unprecedented2 executive order that sets the goal for our state to achieve a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions3 by the year 2025.

CHARLES: The place where the state can do that most quickly and easily is at power plants - replace coal and gas with wind and solar, which is controversial, but it's not as much a partisan4 issue as it used to be. Because wind and solar are so much cheaper now, it changed the mind of John Szoka, a state legislator.

JOHN SZOKA: I would describe myself as a conservative Republican who has come to believe in renewable energy based on the economic facts behind it.

CHARLES: There are big companies pushing clean power now. Ivan Urlaub from the North Carolina Sustainable Energy Association represents some of them.

IVAN URLAUB: We've got low-cost clean energy that's like fruit that's falling off the tree, it's laying on the ground, it's been rotting for 10 years. And let's just pick it up.

CHARLES: And there are people saying we've got to stop climate change, like Democratic state legislator Pricey Harrison.

PRICEY HARRISON: I would like to see us move away from fossil fuel dependency completely.

CHARLES: And all this pressure is aimed at one company - Duke Energy. It's the electricity provider in most of North Carolina, owned by shareholders5, regulated by the state utilities commission. This is a very common arrangement across the country. So I went to meet Duke Energy in an office tower in downtown Charlotte, the second-highest building in North Carolina.

I mean, look at this view - just...

RANDY WHEELESS: Yeah, so this is the convention center there. And there's the NASCAR Hall of Fame there.

CHARLES: Randy Wheeless is a spokesman for the company.

WHEELESS: Duke Energy's one of the largest electric utilities in the nation. We cover six states, a little over 7 million customers.

CHARLES: As for how much carbon dioxide the company releases every year...

WHEELESS: We are 105 million tons.

CHARLES: Of CO2.

WHEELESS: Right.

CHARLES: That's more than the total emissions of a small country, like Greece or Chile. Now, about a third of the company's electricity comes without any greenhouse emissions at all. It's from nuclear plants. And carbon emissions from its other power plants have been falling. It's been shutting down the ones that burn coal, mainly switching over to natural gas, which is cheaper and releases less carbon. It plans to keep doing this, reducing emissions by 40% over the next 15 years. But even natural gas still releases a lot of heat-trapping carbon dioxide.

What would it take for Duke Energy to cut that number by 90%?

WHEELESS: That's going to be tough. I think what you're looking there is you're going to have to have some sort of carbon capture, some sort of new technology that's not really on the table right now.

CHARLES: I press him on this. Could they do more with the technology that's available now? Wheeless says no, going faster would make electricity more expensive.

WHEELESS: You know, I think a lot of environmentalists talk about the end of the world, but there a lot of people still worried about the end of the month and how to pay bills.

CHARLES: For everybody in the state who's been pushing for a big, quick shift to clean energy, this is frustrating6. Dozens of North Carolinians showed up at a meeting of the state utilities commission in February, demanding that the regulators step in and reject Duke Energy's plans. Here's Karen Bearden from Raleigh.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

KAREN BEARDEN: It is critical to move to a just transition to 100% renewable energy fast, y'all, with the urgency of the crisis that we are in.

CHARLES: But it's not clear what regulators will do. Under North Carolina law, they're supposed to make sure that Duke Energy delivers reliable power at the lowest possible cost, and that's cost to consumers, not cost to the environment. It's a puzzle that people are trying to figure out all over the country. How do you get electric utilities to go green?

States in the Northeast are forcing them to, making it steadily7 more expensive to burn fossil fuels. In North Carolina, some people are saying let's bring in competition, like Jim Warren, director of an environmental justice organization called NC WARN - warn as in warning. He thinks if other companies had a chance to offer Duke Energy's customers a better deal, they'd prove clean energy is cheaper.

JIM WARREN: What we really would like to see is that, you know, the monopoly be restructured and we have a situation where we have competition. And then let's let the marketplace figure it out.

CHARLES: Others, though, say a regulated monopoly can do a great job cutting carbon emissions. Cara Goldenberg, a senior associate at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit energy consulting group, says it's just a matter of giving those utilities the right incentives8.

CARA GOLDENBERG: You don't necessarily need to use sticks all the time, but there's also carrots, right? There's also these new business model incentives that can bring the utility along in this transition.

CHARLES: For instance, she says, regulators can change the rules so utilities don't just earn money selling electricity. They can get paid for cutting their greenhouse emissions.

GOLDENBERG: Give the utility a goal. If you meet that goal, we're going to reward you. If you don't meet that goal, there could be a penalty.

CHARLES: Regulators could also let a utility charge higher rates for upgrading its electrical grid9 so it's ready to handle electricity generated by solar arrays on millions of people's homes. Or you could let utilities charge customers for the costs of managing the demand for power.

Conceivably, a utility could control its customer's hot water heaters or electric car chargers, turn them on and off, so the demand for electricity always matches what's being generated by the wind and the sun, hour by hour. Goldenberg says some states, like Colorado and Massachusetts, are already using these tools, and it's turning some electric utilities into partisans10 of clean power. Dan Charles, NPR News.


点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 byline sSXyQ     
n.署名;v.署名
参考例句:
  • His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
  • We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。
2 unprecedented 7gSyJ     
adj.无前例的,新奇的
参考例句:
  • The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
  • A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。
3 emissions 1a87f8769eb755734e056efecb5e2da9     
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。
4 partisan w4ZzY     
adj.党派性的;游击队的;n.游击队员;党徒
参考例句:
  • In their anger they forget all the partisan quarrels.愤怒之中,他们忘掉一切党派之争。
  • The numerous newly created partisan detachments began working slowly towards that region.许多新建的游击队都开始慢慢地向那里移动。
5 shareholders 7d3b0484233cf39bc3f4e3ebf97e69fe     
n.股东( shareholder的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • The meeting was attended by 90% of shareholders. 90%的股东出席了会议。
  • the company's fiduciary duty to its shareholders 公司对股东负有的受托责任
6 frustrating is9z54     
adj.产生挫折的,使人沮丧的,令人泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的现在分词 );挫败;使受挫折;令人沮丧
参考例句:
  • It's frustrating to have to wait so long. 要等这么长时间,真令人懊恼。
  • It was a demeaning and ultimately frustrating experience. 那是一次有失颜面并且令人沮丧至极的经历。 来自《简明英汉词典》
7 steadily Qukw6     
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地
参考例句:
  • The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
  • Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。
8 incentives 884481806a10ef3017726acf079e8fa7     
激励某人做某事的事物( incentive的名词复数 ); 刺激; 诱因; 动机
参考例句:
  • tax incentives to encourage savings 鼓励储蓄的税收措施
  • Furthermore, subsidies provide incentives only for investments in equipment. 更有甚者,提供津贴仅是为鼓励增添设备的投资。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
9 grid 5rPzpK     
n.高压输电线路网;地图坐标方格;格栅
参考例句:
  • In this application,the carrier is used to encapsulate the grid.在这种情况下,要用载体把格栅密封起来。
  • Modern gauges consist of metal foil in the form of a grid.现代应变仪则由网格形式的金属片组成。
10 partisans 7508b06f102269d4b8786dbe34ab4c28     
游击队员( partisan的名词复数 ); 党人; 党羽; 帮伙
参考例句:
  • Every movement has its partisans. 每一运动都有热情的支持者。
  • He was rescued by some Italian partisans. 他被几名意大利游击队员所救。
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TAG标签:   NPR  美国国家电台  英语听力
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