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  3. The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, e

The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, e

admin2015-03-25  60
问题     The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania. The first barrels of crude fetched $18. It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting. Other liquids produced in the refining process were burned or dumped. But the unwanted petrol and diesel did not go to waste for long, thanks to the development of the internal-combustion engine a few years later.
    Since then demand for oil has risen steadily alongside ever-increasing travel by car, plane and ship. Three-fifths of it ends up in fuel tanks. With billions of Asian people growing richer and itching to get behind the wheel of a car, the big oil companies, the International Energy Agency(IEA)and America’s Energy Information Administration all predict that demand will keep on rising.
    We believe that they are wrong, and that oil is close to a peak. This is not the "peak oil" widely discussed several years ago, when several theorists reckoned that supply would flatten and then fall. We believe that demand, not supply, could decline. In the rich world oil demand has already peaked: it has fallen since 2005.
    The first revolution was led by a Texan who has just died. George Mitchell championed "fracking" as a way to release huge supplies of "unconventional" gas from shale beds. This, along with vast new discoveries of conventional gas, has recently helped increase the world’s reserves from 50 to 200 years. ln America, where thanks to Mr. Mitchell shale gas already billows from the ground, liquefied or compressed gas is finding its way into the tanks of lorries, buses and local-delivery vehicles.
    The other great change is in automotive technology. Rapid advances in engine and vehicle design also threaten oil’s dominance. Foremost is the efficiency of the internal-combustion engine itself. Petrol and diesel engines are becoming ever more frugal. The materials used to make cars are getting lighter and stronger. The growing popularity of electric and hybrid cars, as well as vehicles powered by natural gas or hydrogen fuel cells, will also have an effect on demand for oil.
    Not surprisingly, the oil "supermajors" and the IEA disagree. They point out that most of the emerging world has a long way to go before it owns as many cars, or drives as many miles per head, as America. But it would be foolish to extrapolate from the rich world’s past to booming Asia’s future. The sort of environmental policies that are reducing the thirst for fuel in Europe and America by imposing ever-tougher fuel-efficiency standards on vehicles are also being adopted in the emerging economies.
What is the mistake IEA and other oil giants have made about oil demand?
选项 A、They didn’t take modern environmental factor into consideration.
B、They forgot more and more fuel-efficiency standards have been introduced.
C、They ignored the developing countries’ intention of protecting the environment.
D、They are figuring out the condition only from the developed counties’ perspective.
答案C
解析 推理判断题。根据题干关键词IEA和other oil giants定位到第六段。该段中作者提到，按照石油“巨头”和国际能源机构的推断，新兴经济体对石油的需求量还远远没有达到如今发达国家的程度，因此，全世界对石油的需求量不会下降，但作者也说，以发达国家的历史来推断正在蓬勃发展的亚洲的未来是很愚蠢的。目前，很多发展中国家已经开始注意环境，控制对石油的需求量。由此可见，石油“巨头”和国际能源机构的推断忽略了发展中国家的环保意识，因此选[C]。文章中没有提到环境问题对石油的影响，故排除[A]；石油“巨头”们的错误主要在于以发达国家的历史来预测发展中国家对石油的未来需求量，而不是没有考虑到针对燃料效率所推出的政策，故排除[B]；石油“巨头”们和国际能源机构们所作出的预测是以发达国家的历史为基础的，而不是从发达国家的角度去进行的预测，故排除[D]。
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