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  3. The UK government’s decision to shutter plans to build the world’s first tidal lagoon off Swansea Bay is a hard blow for Wales.

The UK government’s decision to shutter plans to build the world’s first tidal lagoon off Swansea Bay is a hard blow for Wales.

admin2022-04-20  66
问题     The UK government’s decision to shutter plans to build the world’s first tidal lagoon off Swansea Bay is a hard blow for Wales. The tidal lagoon project, had it gone ahead, was expected to create 2,200 jobs, plus more in the supply chain. These are the kinds of jobs that Wales, so damaged by steel and coal closures, needs. But the business secretary, Greg Clark, has decided the country can’t have them because they would be too expensive.
    Welsh politicians have reacted with understandable fury to Mr Clark’s announcement, which comes almost exactly 12 months after the government abandoned plans to electrify the railway from Cardiff to Swansea, and just a day after Member of Parliament (MPs) voted to press ahead with another expensive infrastructure project: a third runway at Heathrow.
    There are some rational reasons to approve of this week’s decision, while regretting its consequences. No one, including the Tidal Lagoon Power company, denied that the electricity produced off the Welsh coast would have cost more than the cheapest renewables. The most recent government auctions saw offshore wind schemes win contracts at record lows of￡,57. 50 per megawatt hour, meaning they are within a few pounds of being subsidy-free.
    But cost is not the only consideration. Otherwise, the government would never have gone ahead with the hugely expensive, risky and uncertain Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Nor would it have cut subsidies for solar power and onshore wind, as it did in 2015. Those decisions—particularly the promise to curb onshore wind, as the Conservatives did in their 2015 manifesto, despite poll after poll showing that a majority of the public prefers wind and solar to nuclear—were ideological.
    In a City speech this March, Mr Clark praised business for putting "evidence before ideology". It is welcome that the secretary of state says this is his own approach. Too many of his Conservative colleagues remain too strongly attached to fossil fuels, including the prospect of a whole new shale gas industry. As the price of renewables continues to fall, they will surely lose the argument. With Mr Clark in charge, the hope is that onshore wind and solar subsidies may soon return—though too late for UK companies that could have developed and profited from the technology had we not given up on it long before the renewables boom.
    Yet the government is planning more nuclear power stations, including one in Wales.
    Different rules seem to apply for different technologies. It looks like a Tory government in Westminster snubbed Welsh Labour’s pet project. Backers of the tidal project felt shut out by ministers. Wave energy lobbyists perhaps don’t have the firepower in Whitehall that others can muster. Mr Clark might have relied on the evidence to make a tough call not to back a new, green technology. But it’s hard to shake off the impression that the decision was one rooted in the partisan politics of self-interest.
The author holds that many UK companies missed the chance to develop partly due to________.
选项 A、shortage of fossil fuel reserve in UK
B、the falling price of renewables
C、too idealistic thinking of investors
D、government’s neglect of renewables
答案D
解析 本题是推断题。根据题干中的关键词UK companies定位至第五段。该段末句指出，在克拉克大臣的领导下，政府对于向岸风能和太阳能的补贴有望很快回归，不过这对于国内企业来说太迟了，因为它们原本能够借能源技术革新的东风得到发展。可推断出作者想表达的意思是，若不是补贴遭削减，可再生能源会蓬勃发展，从而惠及企业。即许多英国企业错过了发展机会的部分原因在于“政府不重视可再生能源”。故答案选D。A项“英国化石燃料储备不足”在文中并未提及，故排除；B项“可再生能源价格下跌”是在强调保守党的错误，与题干内容无关，故排除；C项“投资者想法太理想化”属偷换概念，把“政府(决议)”偷换为“投资者”，故排除。
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