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考博英语阅读:《科学美国人》选文一
Pollution Peaks When Temperatures Top Out
气温最高时污染也达到高峰
You may have noticed your summertime electricity bills, when you're cranking the A/C, are more pricey than your wintertime payments. That's because air conditioning is an electricity hog. And when a whole city or region turns down the thermostat, utilities have to meet that increased demand somehow.
你可能已经注意到你的夏季电费，当你启动时，夏季电费要比冬季的支付更昂贵。这是因为空调是一个电力大户。当整个城市或地区关闭恒温器时，电动设备必须满足增加的需求。
"This is often when we turn on the oldest plants or the dirtier power plants." Tracey Holloway, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. "Some of these older plants that only run on fuel oil or run on coal only run on the hottest days."
“这通常是当我们打开废旧植物处理厂或脏发电厂时，”位于麦迪逊的威斯康星大学的大气科学家Tracey Holloway说。“其中一些只靠燃料油或煤运行的老厂只在最热的日子里运行。”
Using data from the EPA, Holloway and her team studied how air pollutants respond when the temperature goes up. They found that across the eastern US, for every degree Celsius temperature rise, power plants belched out 140,000 metric tons of additional carbon dioxide. And emissions of the pollutants sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides rose three and a half percent per extra degree of heat, averaged across the region.
利用EPA的数据，Holloway和她的团队研究了当温度上升时空气污染物的反应。他们发现，在美国东部，当每摄氏度温度上升时，发电厂喷出了140000吨额外的二氧化碳。在该地区的污染物中，二氧化硫和氮氧化物的排放量增加了三个百分点。
That's especially bad, because hot summer days are the worst days to pump out more pollution. "These hot days, when we turn on the air conditioning across the US or the state also happen to be the most chemically reactive days. Every unit of air pollution going into the air is that much more likely to form ozone." And ozone itself is a potent air pollutant. The study is in the journal Environmental Science and Technology. [David Abel et al, Response of Power Plant Emissions to Ambient Temperature in the Eastern United States]
这尤其糟糕，因为炎热的夏季是造成更多污染的糟糕日子。“这些炎热的日子，当我们打开横跨美国或国家的空调时，也恰好是产生化学反应的日子。空气中的每一种污染物都更容易形成臭氧。臭氧本身就是一种有害空气污染物。这项研究结果发表在环境科学与技术杂志上。[David Abel et al，美国东部电厂排放物对环境温度的响应影响研究]
Holloway says the answer to this summertime pollution peak may be an energy source that thrives on hot, sunny days. "If we could be getting solar electricity during this peak time it may offset this hot weather midday peak and be a great solution for avoiding having to turn on those peaking power plants." In other words: why not use the sun, to keep cool.
Holloway说，这个夏季污染高峰的答案可能是一个能源来源的集聚——炎热、阳光明媚的日子。“如果我们能在这个高峰期获得太阳能，可能会抵消炎热的中午高峰天气，这是一个伟大的解决方案，以避免打开这些供电电厂”换句话说：为什么不使用太阳能来保持冷静呢。