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  3. If two scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are correct, people will still be driving gasoline-powered cars 50 years fro

If two scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are correct, people will still be driving gasoline-powered cars 50 years fro

admin2012-02-29  39
问题     If two scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are correct, people will still be driving gasoline-powered cars 50 years from now, giving out heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — and yet that carbon dioxide will not contribute to global warming.
    The scientists, F. Jeffrey Martin and William L. Kubic Jr., are proposing a concept, which they have named Green Freedom, for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline.
    The idea is simple. Air would be blown over a liquid solution which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be extracted (提取) and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel.
    Although they have not yet built a synthetic fuel factory, or even a small prototype (原型), the scientists say it is all based on existing technology.
    "Everything in the concept has been built, is operating or has a close cousin that is operating," Dr. Martin said.
    The Los Alamos proposal does not violate any laws of physics, and other scientists have independently suggested similar ideas.
    In the efforts to reduce humanity’s emissions of carbon dioxide, three solutions have been offered: hydrogen(氢-)-powered fuel cells, electric cars and biofuels. Biofuels are gasoline substitutes produced from plants like corn or sugar cane. Plants absorb carbon dioxide as they grow, but growing crops for fuel takes up wide strips of land.
    Hydrogen-powered cars emit no carbon dioxide, but producing hydrogen requires copious (大量的) energy, and if that energy comes from coal-fired power plants, then the problem has not been solved.
    Electric cars also push the carbon dioxide problem to the power plant. And electric cars have typically been limited to a range of tens of miles as opposed to the hundreds of miles that can be driven on a tank of gas.
    Gasoline, it turns out, is an almost ideal fuel (except that it produces CO2). If it can be made out of carbon dioxide in the air, the Los Alamos concept may mean there is little reason to switch, after all.
    "It’s definitely worth pursuing," said Martin I. Hoffert, a professor of physics at New York University. Other scientists also said the proposal looked promising but could not evaluate it fully because the details had not been published.
What does the author say about biofuels?
选项 A、They are considered as ideal substitutes for fossil fuels.
B、It is a great waste to use so many plants to produce fuels.
C、They help ease global warming but will use a large area of land.
D、Cars using biofuels have a longer range than cars running on gas.
答案C
解析 根据题干中的biofuels将本题出处定位到第七段。该段末句提到的生产生物汽油的植物能吸收二氧化碳表明，生物汽油有助于缓解全球变暖(首句提到生物汽油是削减二氧化碳排放的解决办法之一也印证了这一点)，but后提到生物汽油的缺点：为生产汽油而种植庄稼会占用大量耕地，[C]正是对这两点的综合表述，故答案为[C]。[B]是针对该段末句设的干扰项；文中提到Biofuels是gasoline substitutes，并未说是ideal substitutes，故排除[A];[D]在文中未提及。
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