首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Officials in Tampa Florida, got a surprise recently when a local firm building the state’s first ethanol * -production factory p
Officials in Tampa Florida, got a surprise recently when a local firm building the state’s first ethanol * -production factory p
admin
2014-06-20
91
问题
Officials in Tampa Florida, got a surprise recently when a local firm building the state’s first ethanol * -production factory put in a request for 400, 000 gallons a day of city water. The request by US Envirofuels would make the facility one of the city’s top ten water consumers overnight, and the company plans to double its size. Florida is suffering from a prolonged drought. Rivers and lakes are at record lows and residents wonder where the extra water will come from.
They are not alone. A backlash against the federally financed biofuels boom is growing around the country, and "water could be the Achilles heel" of ethanol, said a report by the Minneapolis-based Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
The number of ethanol factories has almost tripled in the past eight years from 50 to about 140. A further 60 or so are under construction. In 2007, President George Bush signed legislation requiring a fivefold increase in biofuels production, to 36 billion gallons by 2022.
This is controversial for several reasons. There are doubts about how green ethanol really is(some say the production process uses almost as much energy as it produces). Some argue that using farmland for ethanol pushes up food prices internationally(world wheat prices rose 25% recently, perhaps as a side-effect of America’s ethanol programme). But one of the least-known but biggest worries is ethanol’s extravagant use of water.
A typical ethanol factory producing 50 m gallons of biofuels a year needs about 500 gallons of water a minute. Most of that goes into the boiling and cooling process, which is similar to making beer. Some water is lost through evaporation in the cooling tower and in waste discharge. All this is putting a heavy burden on aquifers in some corn-growing areas.
Residents went to court in Missouri to halt a $ 165 m facility being built by Gulf stream Bioflex Energy LLC which was projected to draw 1. 3 m gallons of water every day from the Ozark aquifer. Projects are being challenged in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and in central Illinois, where eight ethanol facilities are situated over the Mahomet aquifer. Demand for corn is such that more land is also being ploughed up in drier regions of the Great Plains states to the west of the corn belt, where irrigation is required, increasing water demand further.
The good news is that ethanol plants are becoming more efficient. They now use about half as much water per gallon of ethanol as they did a decade ago. New technology might be able to halve the amount of water again, says Mike Fatigati, vice president of Delta-T Corp, a Virginia company which has designed a system that does not discharge any waste water. But others are sceptical. "There are things you can close loop(i. e. recycle efficiently)and things you can’t, " says Paul Greene, a senior director for biofuels with Siemens Water Technologies, designers of the water-purification technology used in ethanol factories. Perhaps ethanol just isn’t as bio-friendly as it looks. * ethanol = alcohol fuel
What have most people failed to realize about biofuels?
选项
A、The huge consumption of wheat.
B、The huge consumption of water.
C、The amount of waste discharged.
D、The amount of energy consumed.
答案
B
解析
细节题。题目问的是“大多数人不了解生物燃料的什么方面?”。由文章第四段最后一句“But one of the least—known butbiggest worries is ethanol’s extravagant use of water.”可知:人们没有意识到生产乙醇燃料的用水量,这与B项内容相符。故选B。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/HwXd777K
本试题收录于:
公共英语五级笔试题库公共英语(PETS)分类
0
公共英语五级笔试
公共英语(PETS)
相关试题推荐
Impatiencecharacterizesyoungintellectualworkers.Theywanttomaketheirmark(31).Soit’simportanttoget(32)tothemin
Impatiencecharacterizesyoungintellectualworkers.Theywanttomaketheirmark(31).Soit’simportanttoget(32)tothemin
Impatiencecharacterizesyoungintellectualworkers.Theywanttomaketheirmark(31).Soit’simportanttoget(32)tothemin
Howmanylanguagesareusedthroughouttheworldtoday?
Accordingtothepassage,themassmediapresentuswith______.Theauthorusesthecomparisonwithbuildingacathedraltosh
AnswerQuestionsbyreferringtothearticleaboutmobilephonesinthefollowingmagazinearticle.A=NokiaB=Ericss
Accordingtothewoman,whywomenaremuchbetteratdealingwithmorethanonethingatatime?
TherecentsocialandeconomicchangesintheU.S.havegreatimpactonalltheAmericanhousingsystem.
Themid-19thcenturytimetravelerswouldnotbesurprisedbytoday’sInternetbecause______.Howmanysimilarpointshasthe
Thefirstmarathoncompetitionbegan______.WhydopeoplecriticizethatAmericacan’ttrainbetterprofessionalrunnersthans
随机试题
Menhavetraveledeversincetheyfirstappearedontheearth.Inprimitivetimestheydidnottravelforpleasurehuttofi
关于孕妇血小板减少性紫癜,下列说法错误的是
后鼻孔闭锁,最佳检查方法是
掌握各证的主症、治法、方药。重点记忆各个证型对应的方药。
最易引起肺部感染脓气胸的细菌是
根据《中华人民共和国未成年人保护法》的相关规定,下列关于未成年人合法权益保障的说法正确的是:()。
教学比喻“跳一跳,吃桃子”是()理论的形象概括。
国务院行文对一些地区和单位违反有关规定进行集资的行为进行了批评,并作出处理,同时提出了有关要求。这份文件的文种应是()。
按评分的客观化程度区分,作文属于()试题。
Languagebelongstoeachoneofus,totheflower-seller______totheprofessor.
最新回复
(
0
)