Is there enough oil beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR)to help secure America’ s energy future? President Bush cer

admin2014-12-31  33

问题     Is there enough oil beneath the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge(ANWR)to help secure America’ s energy future? President Bush certainly thinks so. He has argued that tapping ANWR’ s oil would help ease California’ s electricity crisis and provide a major boost to the country’ s energy independence. But no one knows for sure how much crude oil lies buried beneath the frozen earth with the last government survey, conducted in 1998, projecting output anywhere from 3 billion to 16 billion barrels.
    The oil industry goes with the high end of the range, which could equal as much as 10% of U.S. consumption for as long as six years. By pumping more than 1 million barrels a day from the reserve for the next two three decades, lobbyists claim, the nation could cut back on imports equivalent to all shipments to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia. Sounds good. An oil boom would also mean a multibillion-dollar windfall(意外之财)in tax revenues, royalties(开采权使用费)and leasing fees for Alaska and the Federal Government. Best of all, advocates of drilling say, damage to the environment would be insignificant. "We’ve never had a document case of oil rig chasing deer out onto the pack ice." says Alaska State Representative Scott Ogan.
    Not so fast, say environmentalists. Sticking to the low end of government estimates, the National Resources Defense Council says there may be no more than 3.2 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil in the coastal plain of ANWR, a drop in the bucket that would do virtually nothing to ease America’s energy problems. And consumers would wait up to a decade to gain any benefits, because drilling could begin only after much bargaining over leases, environmental permits and regulatory review. As for ANWR’ s impact on the California power crisis, environmentalists point out that oil is responsible for only 1% of the Golden State’s electricity output—and just 3% of the nation’ s.
What do the environmentalists mean by saying "Not so fast"?

选项 A、Oil exploitation takes a long time.
B、The oil drilling should be delayed.
C、Don’ t be too optimistic.
D、Don’ t expect fast returns.

答案C

解析 词汇题。上文一直在说开采的好处,而下文开始介绍对开采的反对意见,即怀疑在北极开采石油的价值,起到转折的作用。前面一段最后提到没有接到开采石油破坏当地环境的报告,与后面环境学家说的相反,即这种破坏可能不会这么快,不要太乐观今后可能会有危害逐渐显现,故C最符合题意。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/kPq7777K
0

最新回复(0)