VOA常速英语2014--科学家研发降低碳排放街灯照明

Better Street Lighting 1 Lowers Carbon Emission 科学家研发降低碳排放街灯照明

A United Nations panel on climate change says global warming is causing extreme weather all over the world and is calling on governments to come up with new ideas to curb 2 gas emissions 3. Since much of the air pollution comes from coal-fired power plants, scientists in Denmark are trying to lower their nation's energy needs with new types of smart streetlights.

Our increasingly industrialized world needs huge amounts of electrical energy, but our power plants still rely mostly on technology introduced as early as the 19th century-coal-powered plants, hydroelectric dams or somewhat newer nuclear energy, all of which have their own shortcomings.

我们日益增长的工业化世界需要大量的电能,但是我们的电厂仍然主要依靠燃煤发电厂、水电站等早在19世纪引进的技术或刚刚崛起的核能,但这些都有自己的缺点。

Renewable sources, such as solar plants and wind turbines, have just started making inroads in lowering harmful emissions, while safer fusion-based nuclear plants are believed to be many decades off.

而太阳能发电厂及风力涡轮机等可再生能源在降低有害排放方面刚刚起步,而更为安全基于聚变的核电站则被认为还要再等上几十年。

But scientists say we can slow down global warming by lowering energy demands for street lights.

但是科学家们表示我们可以通过降低路灯的能源需求减缓全球变暖。

These common features of the world's urban areas require a lot of electricity.

这些世界城市的共同特征就是需要大量电力。

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The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that in 2012, lighting for buildings, streets and highways in the U.S. used about 274 billion kilowatt 4 hours.

美国能源信息管理局估测2012年美国建筑、街道及高速公路的照明使用约2740亿千瓦时。

In a bid to make Copenhagen the world's first carbon-neutral city by 2025, scientists in the Danish capital are testing a variety of new street lighting technologies.

为了使哥本哈根到2025年成为世界上第一个碳排放为零的城市,位于丹麦首都的科学家们正在测试各种各样的街道照明新技术。

Kim Brostrom is the chief technical officer at the Danish Outdoor Lighting Lab.

丹麦户外照明实验室首席技术官金·布罗斯特姆说道。

“We have installed nine kilometers of streets, we have 280 masts placed here, we have 50 different solutions, we have 10 different management systems, and we have a lot of different sensors 5 and things out in the open area."

“我们已经将这种技术应用在了9公里的街道上,我们在这里设置了280个线杆,我们有50种不同的解决方案,10种不同的管理系统,而且我们在开放的区域安置了很多不同的传感器。”

Chief science officer Jakob Andersen says the lights can be managed individually from a tablet computer or a smart phone.

首席科学官雅各布·安德森表示这些街灯可以通过平板电脑或智能手机单独管理。

“You can monitor the run time, the efficacy, the lumen output or the power consumption, and then we do real time measurements on the lux levels on the street level."

“你可以监视运行时长,效能,光强及电耗,而后我们在街道上进行照明等级的实时测量。”

The main goal is to lower energy consumption when the light is not needed. So the lamp brightens up only when it senses an approaching pedestrian, cyclist or vehicle. Some of them even have a backup wind generator 6 or a solar cell.

主要目标是当不需要点亮街灯的时候降低能源消耗。所以灯只有在感觉到行人，骑自行车的人或车辆接近时才会亮起。有些灯甚至配置了备份风力发电机或太阳能电池。

Scientists say installing the smart lights city-wide could save up to 85 percent of the current budget for illuminating 7 the Copenhagen streets.

科学家们表示安装全市智能灯光可以节省照亮哥本哈根街道当前高达85%的预算。