托福考试双语阅读素材：海底核能.docxVIP

Word文档下载后（可任意编辑） 第 第 PAGE 1 页 共 NUMPAGES 1 页 托福考试双语阅读素材：海底核能 托福考试备考素材：托福考试双语阅读素材：海底核能 雅思考试精品课程推荐  the events of March 11th 2011, when an earthquake and tsunami led to a meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant in Japan, you might be forgiven for concluding that atomic power and seawater don’t mix. Many engineers, though, do not agree. They would like to see more seawater involved, not less. In fact, they have plans to site nuclear power plants in the ocean rather than on land—either floating on the surface or moored beneath it.  2011年3月11日，一场地震和海啸导致日本福岛第1核电站的三座核反应堆熔毁。假如你由此得出结论，称核能和海水不能搅和在一起，那也是情有可原。但许多工程师并不这么想。他们希望掺和进来的海水更多些，而不是更少。实际上，他们已经有各种计划，在海上而非陆地上建造核电站。这些核电站或是漂浮在海面上，或是停泊在海面下。  At first, this sounds a mad idea. It is not. Land-based power stations are bespoke structures, built by the techniques of civil engineering, in which each is slightly different and teams of specialists come and go according to the phase of the project. Marine stations, by contrast, could be mass-produced in factories using, if not the techniques of the assembly line, then at least those of the shipyard, with crews constantly employed.  乍一听，这太疯狂了。实则不然。陆上发电站是倚赖土木工程技术建造的定制结构，每座都略有不同，在工程的不同阶段会有各种专家团队来来往往。海上发电站则不同，它们可以在工厂里批量建造，使用的即便不是流水线作业技术，也至少是造船厂的那类技术，而员工是固定的。  That would make power stations at sea cheaper than those on land. Jacopo Buongiorno, a nuclear engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reckons that, when all is done and dusted, electricity from a marine station would cost at least a third less than that from a terrestrial equivalent. It would also make them safer. A reactor anchored on the seabed would never lack emergency cooling, the problem that caused the Fukushima meltdown. Nor would it need to be protected against the risk of terrorists flying an aircraft into it. It would be tsunami-proof, too. Though tsunamis become great and destructive waves when they arrive in shallow water, in the open oc