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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  81
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 will happen if what is proposed by the two scientists becomes true?
选项 A、There will be no need for gasoline substitutes.
B、Air pollution will become a thing of the past.
C、People will be able to use much cheaper energy.
D、There will be no more gasoline-powered vehicles.
答案A
解析 倒数第二段首先提到汽油几乎是理想的能量(除了产生二氧化碳外)。然后提到，如果它可以用空气中的二氧化碳来制造的话，那么，洛斯阿拉莫斯的理念就可能意味着，根本没有任何理由去改变能源，也就是说，如果两位科学家提到的用空气中的二氧化碳来制造汽油的设想变为现实，就不需要寻找汽油的替代品了，故答案为[A]。空气污染不仅包括二氧化碳污染，还包括其他方面，故排除[B]；[C]在文中未提及：[D]与原文意思相反。
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