时间:2019-01-13 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2012年(四月)


英语课

South Korea Researches Vertical 1 Farming for Food Security


Agriculture in high-rise buildings is the dream of some scientists and architects around the globe. But it soon could be reality.


Just outside of Suwon, a city 30-kilometers south of the capital Seoul, the South Korean government is experimenting with urban agriculture. The Rural Development Administration has built a prototype of a vertical farm.
So far, their experiment is only three-stories high. But they hope that in the near future, the technology will expand and be capable of feeding the entire nation.
Their work is inspired by Dickson Despommier, the scientist credited with inventing the idea of vertical farming. 
Despommier says tower-like hydroponic farms could someday stand alongside skyscrapers 2 as a key food source for billions of city dwellers 3. He sees them as a key solution for growing populations with limited arable 4 land.
“Here’s my vision of what a vertical farm might look like. My gold standard for this is the Apple Store in New York City on 5th Avenue," said Despommier. "If you took that building and made it into a five-story building. Now in the building you have multiple floors, of course, and inside each floor you have multiple layers of crops.”
Back in the Suwon lab, agrarian 5 scientist Choi Kyu-hong is still sorting some basic challenges.
“The plant factory requires a lot of energy, the light energy and the heating and cooling energy. So we provide the heating or cooling energy using geothermal systems. We adopted the solar-cell system to provide light source energies, but we are still [only] providing 15 percent of the total energy,” said Choi.
Choi said there are other challenges to overcome before the farms become a viable 6 alternative food source. Scientists are determining the optimum light wavelength 7 for growing each kind of plant.
Team member Lee Hye-Jin said they need more time.
“It might take at least five more years of research to make progress on these obstacles. Then vertical farms might be ready for commercial use,” she said.
The South Korean scientists say that once these problems are resolved, vertical farms won't just have to stop at three-stories. The sky is the limit.

adj.垂直的,顶点的,纵向的;n.垂直物,垂直的位置
  • The northern side of the mountain is almost vertical.这座山的北坡几乎是垂直的。
  • Vertical air motions are not measured by this system.垂直气流的运动不用这种系统来测量。
n.摩天大楼
  • A lot of skyscrapers in Manhattan are rising up to the skies. 曼哈顿有许多摩天大楼耸入云霄。
  • On all sides, skyscrapers rose like jagged teeth. 四周耸起的摩天大楼参差不齐。
n.居民,居住者( dweller的名词复数 )
  • City dwellers think country folk have provincial attitudes. 城里人以为乡下人思想迂腐。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • They have transformed themselves into permanent city dwellers. 他们已成为永久的城市居民。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adj.可耕的,适合种植的
  • The terrain changed quickly from arable land to desert.那个地带很快就从耕地变成了沙漠。
  • Do you know how much arable land has been desolated?你知道什么每年有多少土地荒漠化吗?
adj.土地的,农村的,农业的
  • People are leaving an agrarian way of life to go to the city.人们正在放弃农业生活方式而转向城市。
  • This was a feature of agrarian development in Britain.这是大不列颠土地所有制发展的一个特征。
adj.可行的,切实可行的,能活下去的
  • The scheme is economically viable.这个计划从经济效益来看是可行的。
  • The economy of the country is not viable.这个国家经济是难以维持的。
n.波长
  • The authorities were unable to jam this wavelength.当局无法干扰这一波长。
  • Radio One has broadcast on this wavelength for years.广播1台已经用这个波长广播多年了。
学英语单词
A.E.S.
adiabatic damping
agvs (automated guided vehicle system)
alalunga
alfalfa mosaic
anticultists
aracari
aristoxenuss
Austrophobes
axis angle
bachas
bansela
barlby
Bourdeilles
Boxer Rising
brakemakers
busting
cake shampoo
Calamus rotang
calling for
centaurium calycosums
cleavable
combustible case
computer civilization
construction guide
crack filler
cutting movement
cycloprate
DEPLOC
destructive oxidation
diarthrodactylous
direct-current excited reactor
discontinuous crystallizer
Ecclestone
edging device
eleanors of aquitaine
electronic detector
end matched specimen
fetishizer
finger-prints
fleetwide
Flyte
foot-rest
forewalk
fryar
goathair
hard space
hydrodynamic aided rotary shaft lip seal
i am curious orange
in-flood
International Council for the Exploration of the Sea
Iosiderite
KUW
Ligusticum acutilobum
logic fallacies
media life
melanodon
meridional cell
nonsprouting
nuclear runaway
nucleus dentatus
oestringen
ople tree
output transfer function
parallel flow heating furnace
pebble-dashed
pentamethine
phasetrajectory
Pivoteau
Price County
rabones
radiation health physics
railway wear tolerance
ray crossing
red onions
refractometrically
Riemann-Christoffel tensor
safety protective lighting
SATA cables
sheep-stealer
shift position
Ship Re-mortgage
shoot a glance at sb
Shuakhevi
straight-through flow
straw in the wind
subs' bench
sulfoxidation
tarsoconjuntiva graft
tavernas
tetrarchic
three-section cut
tin-cans
tomographic scanner X
top-side
trabeculae cranii
trade mode
university-levels
up one level
ventral celiotomy
yummily
Zimb.