新能源经济【外文翻译】

（2011届）

本科毕业设计（论文）

外文翻译

原文：THE NEW ENERGY ECONOMY

Everyone agrees it's time, but the obstacles go well beyond matters of technology. Why real change will take nothing less than a new American revolution

To describe what's needed to wean the country off fossil fuels, people often use the word transition. But transition is too smooth. It suggests steadiness, even inevitability, as if the endpoint is predetermined.

The outcome of the tremendous push that's now underway to change how the United States and other countries obtain and consume energy is anything but predetermined. There are no definite answers to questions about the role one source of energy or another will play 15 or 20 years from now, no clear sense about the type of fuel (if any) people will put in their cars, no consensus on how quickly any of this can happen or at what cost.

Nor is the change likely to be smooth and quiet. Instead, it will probably be disruptive, breaking down existing ways of thinking and acting. Not that disruption is bad: Joseph Schumpeter, the famous Austro-Hungarian economist, once spoke of "creative destruction," whereby new technologies and ideas replace old ones, which themselves are overthrown by newer, more progressive ones.

Already, 2009 has been a year of visions, of prophecies. President Barack Obama's inaugural address offered one such vision: doubling alternative energy production in the next three years, updating and expanding the nation's energy infrastructure, saving billions of dollars in energy costs through improved energy efficiency. Think tanks, businesses, industry groups, and environmentalists have laid out their own plans, some more aggressive and some less so.

The sheer number of these plans, not to mention the interest percolating up from nearly all corners of American life, suggests, as Energy Secretary Steven Chu puts it, that "the landscape is changing."

Clean energy is, of course, a narrative that has been slowly developing in the United

States over the past four decades or so, at least since President Jimmy Carter's administration. In the past, its visibility and its urgency have ebbed and flowed with the price of oil. Today, however, it's not just the wild fluctuation in oil prices that is driving the discussion. There is the economic crisis. There is the burgeoning climate crisis, with its implicit call for global cooperation. And there are fresh concerns about national security in an age of emboldened oil cartels and nuclear ambitions. Addressing each of these priorities raises its own set of questions. At the moment, there is no consensus on how aggressively the United States should reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the few next decades or, more broadly still, the proper role of fossil fuels and renewable energy.

Meanw hile, almost every potential contributor to a “green energy economy"--wind and solar power, befouls, nuclear power, energy efficiency--faces hurdles well beyond the technology of each system. Regulatory policies or economic issues stand in the way of massive, quick deployment of any of these.

And so, today, a new mentality is emerging among almost all the major energy players, from wind developers in the Dakotas to coal-plant operators in North Carolina: Energy issues can no longer be treated as piecemeal policy items left up to states and hodgepodge federal legislation to decide but instead must be addressed nationally, in a sweeping manner.

Want the country running on flex-fuel vehicles? "It's just a few hundred dollars more per vehicles," says retired Gen. Wesley Clark, the 2004 presidential candidate and now cochairman of Growth Energy, a group representing several of the nation's largest ethanol producers. "What would encourage an automobile manufacturer to believe he should do it would be a government policy that says we are moving in that direction."

Want more wind power? "The critical thing we are talking about here is national policy and the signals it sends to people," says Denise Bode, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association. "There is tremendous demand for wind power, but there is not enough transmission."

The idea that a nation should have a clear-cut national energy policy sounds obvious enough. In the United States, however, the truth is that energy has not always been

considered a national issue, and in some ways it still isn't.

Nowhere is this more obvious than with the transmission grid, a sprawling jumble of wires and mechanical connections dating back 50, 80, even 100 years in some places. Today, the grid is divided into more than 140 "balancing areas" to help manage the distribution of power. But some are so localized that they can't communicate with their next-door neighbors. As a result, extra power in one region is often wasted rather than being sent to a place that needs it.

So if wind power, solar power, and plug-in electric vehicles are to be big players in the country's energy future, as many hope, this antiquated system for delivering electricity will have to change. The grid must be retooled, and new high-capacity power lines are needed to carry wind-generated electricity from the Midwest to the East and West coasts. To get those high-power lines approved, Bode and other advocates say, the federal government needs more authority to override nasty squabbles between states, environmentalists, and other interest groups that have typically stalled such efforts. The federal government, the thinking goes, already has the authority to build natural gas pipelines across state lines, and electricity should be no different. That sentiment seems to be gaining ground even among regulators who once opposed it, although there are many issues still to be worked out. As Chu says, "If we just take the view that we are going to cram something down someone's throat, this is not a constructive way of doing business" (interview, Page 32). Infrastructure is only one part of the battle to make national energy problems a national issue. Another is technology. Even though wind power technology is relatively mature--it was the country's largest provider of clean electricity last year--most other renewable sources still need work. Improvements to photovoltaic cells could reduce solar power costs significantly. New drilling technologies could help geothermal spread across a larger geographic range. Advancements in befouls, in particular to the enzymes needed to break down grasses and woods to produce ethanol, would have a major impact. Meanwhile, fossil fuels face their own technological challenges. If coal is to stay around for a while, it'll most likely be because of still-developing methods to capture carbon dioxide emissions before they enter the atmosphere.

Scientific breakthroughs don't come cheap. The economic stimulus package set aside $21.5 billion for scientific research, signaling that Washington is taking a much more active role in basic energy issues after years of declining budgets at national labs. But this is just the groundwork. The most powerful force to remake the energy America uses could be government policies: climate change legislation, which would set a price on carbon dioxide emissions, and a national renewable-electricity standard, which would require the United States to get a certain portion of its electricity from renewable energy. Both rules could have far-reaching impacts, forcing industries to massively reconsider their operations, giving financial investor’s confidence to pump money into wind farms, solar fields, and other industries, and convincing the coal industry that it's worth investing billions in technology to reduce emissions.

The consequences of climate change legislation, in fact, are expected to be so great that companies typically opposed to government regulation are asking Congress to go ahead and act just so that they can have some certainty about where to put their money.

What Washington won't do--not in theory, anyway--is pick specific winners. "The market will decide what the mix will be," says Matt Rogers, a former director at McKinsey & Co. and now one of Chu's top advisers. "It will be interesting to see what the market brings forward." Of course, in reality, Congress's record is one of subsidizing some industries but not others. Even within the befoul world, corn-based ethanol is heavily supported, but some others, such as befoul made from algae, receive almost no backing.

In this new era of national energy, one of the primary questions facing the country is that of timing. When should things happen? And how soon can they occur? "Broadly, what scares me is that we want to do this in an incremental fashion. We want this to come across as painlessly as possible," say Rich Wells, vice president of energy at Dow Chemical. "We need a breakthrough mentality."

It has become a cliché to say that there is no "silver bullet" for the nation's energy and climate problems. Most experts prefer to think about energy solutions as a collection of options to be deployed in tandem. Perhaps the most widely quoted example is the "wedge model," developed by Princeton University professors Stephen Pocola and

Robert Soochow in 2004. It outlined 15 wedges, each one representing a way to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the next 50 years. Among them: raising the fuel economy of 2 billion cars from 30 mpg to 60 mpg and doubling nuclear capacity worldwide.

Only some of these, of course, are realistic in the shorter term. "If you're only going to do one, the top one is always energy efficiency," says Dow's Wells. "It is for the most part the easiest, cheapest fuel out there." Amory Loins, chief scientist at the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, agrees, saying that energy savings from highly fuel-efficient cars would be equivalent to "finding a Saudi Arabia under Detroit." Perhaps the biggest barrier for buildings has been the upfront cost of doing retrofits, with the need to convince people that the costs can be quickly recouped by lower energy bills. The stimulus package is taking a stab at this, setting aside $5 billion for home weatherization.

Meanwhile, everyone else is jockeying for position. The befoul industry wants Congress to lift the cap on how much ethanol can be blended into gasoline. The nuclear industry is asking Congress to cough up billions to insure new nuclear power plants; wind and solar industries are asking for transmission superhighways. Detroit wants more in government bailout money. And coal wants money to research carbon capture technology. The great energy nationalization is here.

译文：新能源经济

每个国家都希望开发新能晕，但局限于开发的障碍以及技术问题。因此而产生的真正影响不亚于一个新的美国革命的影响。

为了描述需要什么的国家需要多少化石燃料，人们经常使用这个词来加以过渡。正如在“向清洁能源经济的过渡。”但太顺利的过渡，那便是表明这个过程是不稳健的，甚至危机是必然产生的。

该说的巨大推动现在正在进行改变美国和其他国家获取和消耗能源的结果是什么，但预先确定的。大约有一个来源的作用能量或他人的意志从现在起到15年或20年，没有关于燃料类型（如果有的话）的人会把他们的汽车，没有明确的共识的问题没有明确的答案，任何的速度有多快这可能发生或什么样的代价。

也不是改变可能是平稳和安静。相反，它可能会造成干扰，打破现有的思维和行为方式。这并不是说中断是坏：约瑟夫熊彼特，著名的奥匈牙利经济学家，曾经是“创造性破坏”，即以新的技术和理念取代旧的，这本身是由更新，更进步的推翻。

目前，2009年以来的愿景一年，预言。奥巴马总统的就职演说中提出这样一种设想：在未来三年增加一倍替代能源生产，更新和扩大国家的能源基础设施，通过提高能源效率，节约了数十亿美元的能源开支。智库，企业，行业团体和环保人士制定了自己的计划，更积极一些，有些少一些。

这些计划的数量之多，更不用提息渗透几乎所有美国人生活的角落了，建议，为能源部长史蒂芬朱所说的那样，认为“景观正在发生变化。”

潮起潮落。清洁能源，当然，有一条说明，已慢慢发展美国在过去四十年左右至少从卡特总统的施政。在过去，它的知名度和其紧迫性已消退，并与石油价格流。然而今天，这不只是在石油价格是推动讨论野生波动。还有就是经济危机。还有就是新兴的气候危机，其对全球合作的隐式调用。而大约有底气在一个石油卡特尔和国家安全的核野心的时代新的担忧。

解决这些优先事项的每引发其自己的一套问题。目前，没有关于如何积极美国应减少在未来几十年温室气体排放，或者更广泛地仍然共识，化石燃料和可再生能源应有的作用。

与此同时，几乎每一个潜在的贡献者“绿色能源经济” - 风力和太阳能发电，生物燃料，核电，能源效率 - 面远远超出了各系统的技术障碍。监管政策或经济问题上的立场，在大规模，对其中任何方式快速部署。

因此，今天，一个新的思路正在形成中，几乎所有的主要能源的球员，从开发商达科他州风煤电厂运营商在北卡罗莱纳州：能源问题可以不再被视为零敲碎打施政项目留给国家和大杂烩治疗联邦立法来决定，而是必须在全国彻底的解决方式。

希望国家对混合燃料车辆运行？“这只是一个数百元，每车”退役将军韦斯利克拉克说，2004年的总统候选人，现生长的能量，一组代表了全美最大的乙醇生产几个有限公司董事长。“怎么会鼓励汽车制造商相信他应该这样做将是一个政府的政策，说我们是在朝着这个方向前进。”

想要更多的风力发电？“关键的事情，我们在这里谈论的是国家政策和它发出的信号对人说：”丹尼斯波特，美国风能协会首席执行官。“有是风力发电的巨大需求，但没有足够的传输。”

那种认为一个国家应该有一个明确的国家能源政策的声音明显不够。在美国，然而，事实是，并不总是被视为一个国家的能源问题，而且在某些方面它仍然不是。

任何地方都没有比这更输电网，电线和一个可追溯到50，80机械连接广阔的混乱，甚至100年来在一些地方明显。今天，网格分为140多个“平衡区”，以帮助管理的权力分配。但也有一些这样的本地化，他们不能与他们的隔壁邻居。因此，在一个地区往往是浪费的额外的电源，而不是被发送到一个地方需要它。

因此，如果风力发电，太阳能发电和插电式电动汽车是在该国的能源未来大牌球员，因为许多人希望，这个过时系统将提供电力必须改变。网格必须调整推动，以及新的高容量电源线都需要进行风力发电的电力来自中西部的东部和西部海岸。为了让这些高功率线批准，博德和其他倡导者说，联邦政府需要更多的权力，凌驾于国家之间，环保和其他利益群体，通常这些努力陷入僵局讨厌争吵。联邦政府，思维去，已经拥有的权力，建立跨州天然气管道和电力应该没有什么不同。这种观点似乎是，即使在获得监管机构一旦谁反对理由，虽然有许多问题仍有待制定。正如楚说：“如果我们只取我们认为，去补习了别人的喉咙的东西，这不是一个做生意的建设性的方式”。

基础设施是唯一的战斗，使国家能源问题的一个全国性的问题的一部分。另一种是技术。虽然风力发电技术相对成熟的-它是该国最大的电力供应商，去年清洁 - 大多数其他可再生能源仍然需要工作。光伏电池的改进可显着降低太阳能发电成本。钻井新技术可以帮助他们越过一个更大的地理范围地传播。生物燃料的进步，特别是需要打破草和树林，生产乙醇的酶，将产生重大影响。与此同时，化石燃料的面对自己的技术挑战。如果煤停留一段时间，它会最有可能是因为仍在发展的方法来捕获二氧化碳排放进入大气层之前。

科学突破不便宜。经济刺激计划拨出215亿元用于科学研究，这表明华盛顿正在国家实验室后，在预算年下降一个更为基本的能源问题方面发挥积极作用。但是，这仅仅是基础。最强大的力量来改造美国的能源政策是政府可以使用：气候变化立法，将制定关于二氧化碳排放的价格，成为全国可再生电力标准，这就要求美国以获得一定比例的电力来自可再生能源。这两个规则可以产生深远的影响，迫使行业大规模重新考虑他们的行动，使信心金融投资者注入风力农场，太阳能领域，其他行业的钱，有说服力的煤炭行业，它的技术值得投资数十亿美元，减少排放。

气候变化立法的后果，其实，预计将如此之大，通常是反对政府监管的公司都要求国会继续前进，只是行为，使他们能有一些地方把他们的钱肯定。华盛顿不会做什么 - 不是在理论上而言是选择特定的赢家。“市场将决定什么组合将是，”马特罗杰斯说，在麦肯锡公司前董事，现在楚的高级顾问之一。“这将是有趣的，看看市场带来进步。”当然，在现实中，国会的纪录，是资助一些行业，但不是别人的。即使在世界生物燃料，玉米为原料的乙醇在很大程度上支持，但如从海藻制成生物燃料的一些人，几乎没有得到支持。

在这个国家的能源的新时代，该国面临的主要问题之一是时机。当应该的事呢？按照什么顺序？不久，他们又如何能发生？“从广义上讲，是什么让我害怕的是，我们想在这一个渐进的方式。我们希望这让我们觉得尽可能无痛苦，”韦尔斯说丰富，能源副总裁陶氏化学。“我们需要一个突破的心态。”

它已成为一个老生常谈地说，没有“银弹”为国家的能源和气候问题。大多数专家倾向于认为对能源的解决方案作为一个选项，并计划于串联部署。也许最被广泛引用的例子是“楔模式”，由普林斯顿大学教授斯蒂芬波科拉和罗伯特索科洛于2004年开发。它概述了15个楔子，每一个区域代表方式来显着减少，在

未来50年的温室气体排放。其中包括：从30英里提高2亿辆汽车的燃油经济性为60英里和世界各地的核能力增加一倍。只有其中的一些，当然，是在短期内的现实。“如果你只打算做一个，上面一个是能源效率总是说，”陶氏井。“这是大部分的最简单，最便宜的燃料在那里。”艾默里罗文斯，在非营利落基山研究所的首席科学家，同意，说，从高燃料效率的汽车节省下来的能源相当于“寻找下底特律沙特阿拉伯。”也许，对建筑物的最大障碍一直是这样做改造前期费用，有必要让人们相信的成本可以迅速降低能源开支弥补。正在采取的振兴经济措施在此一捅，撇开家庭耐候500亿美元。

同时，大家都在争夺的位置。生物燃料行业希望国会解除对乙醇的多少可以分为汽油混合上限。核工业是要求国会咳出十亿美元，以确保新的核电厂，风力和太阳能产业是高速公路的传输要求。底特律希望政府救助更多的钱。想要钱和煤的研究碳捕获技术。