Electric cars are dirty. In fact, not only are they dirty, they might even be dirtier than their gasoline-powered cousins.
People in California love to talk about “zero-emissions vehicles”, but people in California seem to be clueless about where electricity comes from. Power plants mostly use fire to make it. Aside from the new folks who have their roofs covered with solar cells, we get our electricity from generators (发电机). Generators are fueled by something—usually coal, oil,but also by heat generated in nuclear power plants. There are a few wind farms and geothermal (地热)plants as well, but by far we get electricity mainly by burning something.
In other words, those “zero-emissions” cars are likely coal-burning cars. It’s just because the coal is burned somewhere else, it looks clean. It is not. It’s as if the California Greens are covering their eyes—“ If I can’t see it, it’s not happening.” Gasoline is an incredibly efficient way to power a vehicle; a gallon of gas has a lot of energy in it. But when you take that gas (or another fuel) and first use it to make electricity, you waste a nice part of that energy, mostly in the form of wasted heat—at the generator, through the transmission lines, etc.
A gallon of gas may propel your car 25 miles. But the electricity you get from that gallon of gas won’t get you as far — so electric cars burn more fuel than gasoline-powered ones. If our electricity came mostly from nukes or geothermal, or hydro or wind or solar, then an electric car truly would be clean. But for political, technical, and economic reasons, we don’t use much of those energy sources.
In addition, electric cars’ batteries which are poisonous for a long time will eventually end up in a landfill. And finally, when cars are the polluters, the pollution is spread across all the roads. When it’s a power plant, though, all the junk is in one place. Nature is very good at cleaning up when things are too concentrated, but it takes a lot longer when all the garbage is in one spot.
【小题1】What is the main idea of the text?| A．Electric cars are far from being clean. |
| B．Electric cars are better than gasoline-powered ones. |
| C．People cast doubts on electric cars’ batteries. |
| D．Gasoline is an efficient way to power a vehicle. |
| A．no less than 25 miles | B．as far as 50 miles |
| C．less than 25 miles | D．as far as 25 miles |
| A．are more environmentally friendly |
| B．burn more fuel than gas-powered ones |
| C．are very good at cleaning up when things are not too concentrated |
| D．are poisonous for a long time and will eventually end up in a landfill |
| A．being green is good and should be encouraged in communication |
| B．electric cars are the dominant vehicles compared with their gas-powered cousins |
| C．zero-emissions vehicles should be chosen to protect our environment |
| D．electric cars are not clean because we get electricity mainly by burning something |
