出国留学首选一诺留学

　　中英文本

　　Solar farms

　　太阳能发电厂

　　Blue steel

　　蓝色的钢铁海洋

　　British fields adopt a new crop

　　英国大地上种起了新“庄稼”

　　Let's take it to Spain

　　我们把它搬去西班牙吧

　　TWO nuclear bombs are among many curious machines which the Science Museum stores at anold airfield in Wiltshire. An early hovercraft stands with a fleet of submersibles and a truck thatonce roamed the Antarctic. Now a new acquisition is on the way. Around the runway workersare preparing to lay out 155,000 solar panels—at about 170 acres, one of the biggest solarfarms in Britain.

　　科学博物馆将许多稀奇古怪的机器储藏在位于威尔特郡(Wiltshire)的废旧机场里，这其中就包括两枚核弹。还有一艘早期的气垫船，一排潜水器，和一辆曾经驰骋于南极洲的卡车。现如今，一项新的收藏将要加入它们的行列。工人们准备在跑道的周围搭建155,000张太阳能板。该工程占地约170英亩，将有望成为英国最大的太阳能发电厂。

　　Though Britain's hillsides are peppered with wind turbines, solar panels produce less than halfof one percent of its power. Racing to hit a European target that requires it to generate 30%of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, the government wants a lot more. GregoryBarker, an energy minister, says the solar industry could expand sixfold within a decade. Laidon the ground, that many panels would fill an area of about 150 square miles.

　　尽管不列颠的山坡上布满了用来风力发电的风轮机，并且其发电量差不多是太阳能板发电量的两百多倍。然而面对亟待实现的目标，英国政府还有很长的路要走。欧盟已设定了目标：截至2020年，欧盟成员国30%的电力供给要来自可再生能源。能源部长格雷戈里·巴克尔(Gregory Barker)说，在未来的十年内太阳能行业将扩展六倍。若将如此多数量的太阳能板平铺开来，它们将覆盖150平方英里的区域。

　　Fields full of solar panels are less obtrusive than hillside turbines, and simpler to install. Whereasopposition to wind power is mounting, about 85% of Britons back new solar projects. Bigarrays may even encourage some kinds of wildlife, for example by sheltering ground-nestingbirds.

　　installing solar panels has fallen by half since 2010 due toheavy deployment in Germany and elsewhere. Weak British sunlight makes energy from solarfarms about 25% more expensive than from onshore wind turbines—and more than twice thewholesale price of power—but the government expects a 20% reduction by 2020.

　　此外，利用太阳能发电也变得越来越便宜了。由于德国以及其他一些国家强化部署发展太阳能产业，自2010年以来，安装太阳能板的成本已经降低了一半。英国较弱的光照条件使得来自太阳能的电力要比近海风力发电所产生的电力贵25%，电力批发价格方面前者更是后者的两倍多。然而，英国政府预期，到2020年太阳能电费将降低20%。