本集内容

Electric car island 电动汽车岛

学习要点

有关 “energy （能源）” 的词汇

边看边答

What is the electricity in the cars used for at nighttime?

文字稿

The savage beauty of Porto Santo attracts tourists who love nature. But people need energy and the way it's generated here is damaging nature. This pollution's coming from the diesel generator which powers the island's homes. Transporting the diesel is expensive and it's fuelling climate change.

波尔图桑塔的原始美景吸引着热爱大自然的游客。但是人们的生活需要能源，而这里制造能源的方式正在破坏自然环境。（画面中的）这种污染来自岛上居民使用的柴油发电机。运输柴油非常昂贵，运输过程也加剧了气候变化。

The local government want clean, renewable energy instead. But wind power and solar power ebb and flow, so they need a way of storing energy for use at nighttime. Here's the chosen solution - the electric car, but not as we know it.

当地政府想要的是清洁的、可再生能源。但是风能和太阳能不够稳定，所以它们需要一种储存能量的方法，以供夜间使用。这就是他们选择的解决方案——电动汽车，但不是我们所知道的那种电动汽车。

In future, electric vehicles here will be fitted with a reversible battery that stores energy for the electricity grid. So how does a reversible battery work?

未来，这里的电动汽车将配备一种可逆电池，为电网储存能量。那么可逆电池是如何工作的呢？

When the Sun is shining, the electricity flows out of the grid, down the cable and into the car. Then it's stored in the battery until nighttime, when it flows back out of the car, up the cable and into the grid to power people's homes. The car is smart, so it keeps enough power for itself to be driven.

当阳光充足时，电力从电网中流出，顺着电缆流入汽车。然后它被储存在可逆电池里，直到夜晚，它再流出汽车，通过电缆进入电网，为用户家庭供电。这辆汽车很智能，所以它还能保持足够的动力供驾驶使用。

On Porto Santo, some police [cars] are already powered by electricity. To run an effective backup for the local grid, half the cars on the island, like this electric taxi, will need to store power as well as using it.

在波尔图桑塔，一些警车已经靠电力驱动。为了给当地电网提供有效的电力备份，岛上一半的汽车，比如这款电动出租车，需要储存和使用电力。

So is this the road to the future? Well, a couple of years ago, if you'd suggested that car batteries could play a major part in supporting an electricity grid, a lot of people would have laughed. But that is exactly what’s happened. The electricity revolution is going to create a lot more surprises.

这是通往未来的道路吗？几年前，如果你说汽车电池可以在支持电网方面发挥重要作用，很多人都会觉得这是个笑话。但事实正是这样。电力革命将带来更多的惊喜。

词汇

generated 产生，制造（能量）

renewable 可再生的

reversible 可逆的

electricity grid 电网

powered 驱动，为……提供动力

问题答案

At nighttime, the stored electricity flows back out of the car, up the cable and into the grid to power people's homes.