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  3. Many people consider the wider use of biofuels a promising way of reducing the amount of surplus carbon dioxide (C02) being pump

Many people consider the wider use of biofuels a promising way of reducing the amount of surplus carbon dioxide (C02) being pump

admin2013-06-10  51
问题     Many people consider the wider use of biofuels a promising way of reducing the amount of surplus carbon dioxide (C02) being pumped into the air by the world’s mechanized transport. The theory is that plants such as sugar cane, maize (corn, to Americans), oilseed rape and wheat take up C02 during their growth, so burning fuels made from them should have no net effect on the amount of that gas in the atmosphere.
    Theory, though, does not always translate into practice, and just as governments have committed themselves to the greater use of biofuels, questions are being raised about how green this form of energy really is. The latest comes from the International Council for Science (ICSU) based in Paris.
    The ICSU report concludes that, so far, the production of biofuels has aggravated rather than ameliorated global warming. In particular, it supports some controversial findings published in 2007 by Paul Crutzen of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany. Dr. Crutzen concluded that most analyses had underestimated the importance to global warming of a gas called nitrous oxide (N20). The amount of this gas released by farming biofuel crops such as maize and rape probably negates by itself any advantage offered by reduced emissions of C02.
    Although N20 is not common in the Earth’s atmosphere, it is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 and it hangs around longer. The result is that, over the course of a century, its ability to warm the planet is almost 300 times that of an equivalent mass of C02.
    N2O is made by bacteria that live in soil and water and, these days, their raw material is often the nitrogen-rich fertiliser that modern farming requires. Since the 1960s the amount of fertiliser used by farmers has increased sixfold, and not all of that extra nitrogen ends up in their crops. Maize, in particular, is described by experts in the field as a "nitrogen-leaky" plant because it has shallow roots and takes up nitrogen for only a few months of the year. This would make maize (which is one of the main sources of biofuel) a particularly bad contributor to global N20 emissions.
    But it is not just biofuels that are to blame. The ICSU report suggests N20 emissions in general are probably more important than had been realised. Previous studies, including those by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations-appointed body of experts, may have miscalculated their significance — and according to Adrian Williams of Cranfield University, in Britain, even the IPCC’s approach suggests that the global-warming potential of most of Britain’s annual crops is dominated by N20 emissions.
Biofuels are appreciated by governments because
选项 A、burning biofuels does not add CO2 to the atmosphere.
B、biofuels can slow down the pace of global warming.
C、biofuels are a promising and profitable form of green energy.
D、burning biofuels discharges less N20 than burning oils.
答案A
解析 推理判断题。由题干中的governments将信息定位于第二段。该段主要谈论了当政府打算致力于在更大范围使用生物燃料时，出现了很多的质疑；而并未涉及政府觉得生物燃料好的原因。联系首段尾句可知，生物燃料不仅好在产出该燃料的植物在生长过程中能吸收CO2，而且燃烧生物燃料还不会增加大气中的C02。故[A]正确。原文并未提到生物燃料可以减缓全球变暖，故[B]为主观臆断；首段提到生物燃料是一种减少CO2的promising way，但没提到它“有利可图”，故[C]错误；下文谈到生产生物燃料过程中产生的N2O可能导致全球变暖加剧，但并未提到燃烧该种燃料会释放N2O，故[D]不正确。
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