托福TPO閱讀真題及譯文：Geothermal Energy

第一段：

托福TPO閱讀原文：
　　Earth's internal heat, fueled by radioactivity, provides the energy for plate tectonics and continental drift, mountain building, and earthquakes. It can also be harnessed to drive electric generators and heat homes. Geothermal energy becomes available in a practical form when underground heat is transferred by water that is heated as it passes through a subsurface region of hot rocks (a heat reservoir) that may be hundreds or thousands of feet deep. The water is usually naturally occurring groundwater that seeps down along fractures in the rock; less typically, the water is artificially introduced by being pumped down from the surface. The water is brought to the surface, as a liquid or steam, through holes drilled for the purpose.

托福TPO閱讀翻譯：
　　地球內(nèi)部因放射產(chǎn)生的熱量為板塊運(yùn)動(dòng)、大陸漂移、造山運(yùn)動(dòng)和地震提供了能量。這種熱量還可以用來(lái)驅(qū)動(dòng)發(fā)電機(jī)發(fā)電以及為家庭供暖。水流經(jīng)地表下可能幾百甚至幾千英尺深的熱巖區(qū)域（一種熱儲(chǔ)）被加熱，當(dāng)被加熱的水將熱量傳遞出來(lái)時(shí)，地?zé)崮芫涂梢詫?shí)際形式加以利用了。這些水通常是沿著巖石的斷面下滲的天然地下水，少數(shù)情況下是人為從地表泵入的水。通過(guò)為了采集地?zé)崮芩�鉆的孔，這些水會(huì)以液體或蒸汽的形式被帶到地表。

第二段：

托福TPO閱讀原文：
　　By far the most abundant form of geothermal energy occurs at the relatively low temperatures of 80° to 180° centigrade. Water circulated through heat reservoirs in this temperature range is able to extract enough heat to warm residential, commercial, and industrial spaces. More than 20,000 apartments in France are now heated by warm underground water drawn from a heat reservoir in a geologic structure near Paris called the Paris Basin. Iceland sits on a volcanic structure known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland, is entirely heated by geothermal energy derived from volcanic heat.

托福TPO閱讀翻譯：
　　到目前為止，最豐富的地?zé)崮苄问浇橛谙鄬?duì)較低的80到180攝氏度的溫度。在此溫度范圍內(nèi)的熱儲(chǔ)內(nèi)循環(huán)的水可以提取出足夠的熱量供居住區(qū)、商業(yè)區(qū)和工業(yè)區(qū)取暖。目前在法國(guó)有20 000間以上的公寓是由溫暖的地下水供暖的，這些地下水來(lái)自位于巴黎附近叫做巴黎盆地的地質(zhì)構(gòu)造的熱儲(chǔ)。冰島位于一個(gè)被稱(chēng)為是大西洋中脊的火山構(gòu)造之上。冰島的首都雷克雅維克完全是用火山熱產(chǎn)生的地?zé)崮芄┡�的�?/p>

第三段：

托福TPO閱讀原文：
　　Geothermal reservoirs with temperatures above 180° centigrade are useful for generating electricity. They occur primarily in regions of recent volcanic activity as hot, dry rock; natural hot water; or natural steam. The latter two sources are limited to those few areas where surface water seeps down through underground faults or fractures to reach deep rocks heated by the recent activity of molten rock material. The world's largest supply of natural steam occurs at The Geysers, 120 kilometers north of San Francisco, California. In the 1990s enough electricity to meet about half the needs of San Francisco was being generated there. This facility was then in its third decade of production and was beginning to show signs of decline, perhaps because of over development. By the late 1990s some 70 geothermal electric-generating plants were in operation in California, Utah, Nevada, and Hawaii, generating enough power to supply about a million people. Eighteen countries now generate electricity using geothermal heat.

托福TPO閱讀翻譯：
　　溫度高于180攝氏度的地?zé)醿?chǔ)集層可用來(lái)發(fā)電。這類(lèi)地?zé)醿?chǔ)集層主要位于有近期火山活動(dòng)的區(qū)域，以干熱的巖石、天然熱水或天然蒸汽的形式存在。后兩種形式的儲(chǔ)集層局限于少數(shù)區(qū)域，在這些區(qū)域，地表水通過(guò)地下斷層或斷裂滲入到被近期的熔巖活動(dòng)加熱的深層巖石。世界上最大的天然蒸汽供應(yīng)位于加州舊金山以北120公里處的蓋沙斯。二十世紀(jì)九十年代，那里產(chǎn)出的電能足夠滿(mǎn)足舊金山半數(shù)的需求。當(dāng)時(shí)該電廠已經(jīng)有三十個(gè)年頭了，開(kāi)始顯示出發(fā)電量下降的跡象，這可能是由于過(guò)度的開(kāi)發(fā)所致。到二十世紀(jì)九十年代末，加州、猶他州、內(nèi)華達(dá)州和夏威夷約有70個(gè)地?zé)岚l(fā)電廠在運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)，產(chǎn)生的電能足夠滿(mǎn)足一百萬(wàn)人的需求。目前有18個(gè)國(guó)家在利用地?zé)崮馨l(fā)電。

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第四段：

托福TPO閱讀原文：
　　Extracting heat from very hot, dry rocks presents a more difficult problem: the rocks must be fractured to permit the circulation of water, and the water must be provided artificially. The rocks are fractured by water pumped down at very high pressures. Experiments are under way to develop technologies for exploiting this resource.

托福TPO閱讀翻譯：
　　要從極干熱的巖石中提取熱量存在一個(gè)更大的難題：巖石需要有裂縫才能讓水流通，而且水必須是人工提供的。通過(guò)泵入高壓水可以將巖石斷裂。開(kāi)發(fā)利用此能源的技術(shù)的實(shí)驗(yàn)正在進(jìn)行之中。

第五段：

托福TPO閱讀原文：
　　Like most other energy sources, geothermal energy presents some environmental problems. The surface of the ground can sink if hot groundwater is withdrawn without being replaced. In addition, water heated geothermally can contain salts and toxic materials dissolved from the hot rock. These waters present a disposal problem if they are not returned to the ground from which they were removed.

托福TPO閱讀翻譯：
　　就像大多數(shù)其它能源一樣，地?zé)崮芤簿哂幸恍┉h(huán)境問(wèn)題。如果抽取地下熱水而又不泵回，地表就會(huì)下沉。此外，地?zé)峒訜岬乃�含有從熱巖中溶出的鹽分和有毒物質(zhì)。這些水如果不能被輸送回抽取的地方，將會(huì)產(chǎn)生處理方面的問(wèn)題。

第六段：

托福TPO閱讀原文：
　　The contribution of geothermal energy to the world's energy future is difficult to estimate. Geothermal energy is in a sense not renewable, because in most cases the heat would be drawn out of a reservoir much more rapidly than it would be replaced by the very slow geological processes by which heat flows through solid rock into a heat reservoir. However, in many places (for example, California, Hawaii, the Philippines, Japan, Mexico, the rift valleys of Africa)the resource is potentially so large that its future will depend on the economics of production. At present, we can make efficient use of only naturally occurring hot water or steam deposits. Although the potential is enormous, it is likely that in the near future geothermal energy can make important local contributions only where the resource is close to the user and the economics are favorable, as they are in California, New Zealand, and Iceland. Geothermal energy probably will not make large-scale contributions to the world energy budget until well into the twenty-first century, if ever.

托福TPO閱讀翻譯：
　　地?zé)崮軐?duì)世界能源未來(lái)的貢獻(xiàn)是難以估量的。地?zé)崮茉谀撤N意義上講是不可再生的，因?yàn)槎鄶?shù)情況下，與熱量流經(jīng)堅(jiān)硬的巖石到達(dá)熱儲(chǔ)這個(gè)極為緩慢的地質(zhì)作用的更新速度相比，從熱儲(chǔ)提取熱量的速度要快得多。不過(guò)，在很多地區(qū)（例如加州、夏威夷、菲律賓、日本、墨西哥、非洲的裂谷），這種能源可能非�？捎^，它的前景將取決于經(jīng)濟(jì)的生產(chǎn)。目前，我們只能有效地利用天然形成的熱水或蒸汽形式的地?zé)崮�。盡管潛能巨大，近期之內(nèi)地?zé)崮芸赡苤荒軐?duì)毗鄰用戶(hù)以及經(jīng)濟(jì)狀況良好的地區(qū)做出重要的局部貢獻(xiàn)，就像在加州、新西蘭和冰島地區(qū)的情況一樣。如果可能的話(huà)，地?zé)崮芄烙?jì)要到二十一世紀(jì)才能對(duì)世界的能源預(yù)算做出大的貢獻(xiàn)。