Green and Future Energy Learn English through story level 2
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chapter one
energy today
i can feel the plane shaking as it gets
faster then suddenly lifts into the air
its engines are burning 1.5 liters of
fuel
every second as we climb into the sky
above istanbul
it is seven o’clock on a cold february
evening
in a city of 13 million people
below me people are traveling home from
work
in cars buses trains
and boats through the plain
window i can see thousands of lights
from factories streets shops
houses and ships in the mamara sea
the city lights look beautiful at night
but have you ever thought about how much
energy they use
where does all this energy come from
about two hours later i open the front
door of my house
in adana in eastern turkey
i can smell food cooking and hear the
sound of a tv
a red light goes on and off on the
telephone
all over the house machines are taking
messages
washing cooking and heating the house
perhaps you are reading this book at
home
are the lights on in your room
are you listening to music
how many machines can you see around you
right now
this moment around the world
billions of lights computers
tvs and fridges are turned on
at any moment of any day 25
million cars are driving on roads
and nearly 700 000 people
are flying somewhere in a plane
most of the energy that we use for these
things
comes from fuels like coal oil
and natural gas one day
soon we will not have any more of these
fuels
where will our energy come from in the
future
and how will this change our world
chapter 2 fossil fuels
for thousands of years people made
things with their hands
they used the power of the wind water
and animals to travel move
or build things most people
burnt wood to heat their homes and to
cook
then in october 1765
a young engineer called james watt
built a machine that changed the world
a steam engine to make a steam engine
work coal is burnt to heat
water and this makes steam
the steam goes into the engine and
moves the parts inside it
there were steam engines before 1765
but what’s new engine worked much better
and could move big machines in factories
soon people began to build factories
everywhere
in the next hundred years lots of new
factory machines were invented
they made new products for people to buy
suddenly our houses were full of
new things in many countries
thousands of people left their villages
and moved to the cities to work in the
factories
poor workers worked long hours with
dangerous machines and life was very
hard
for them smoke from the burning coal
filled the air in the towns
the first steam train was built in 1804
by 1850 trains and ships with steam
engines
were carrying passengers around the
world
in the 1880s the first power
stations were built they burnt
coal to make steam for huge machines
called steam turbines
when steam turbines move they
turn parts in machines called generators
which use this movement to make
electricity
soon electric lights appeared on the
streets
and people had electric power at home
in 1885 german engineer
karl benz invented the first car
it used a new type of engine and a new
type of fuel
petrol petrol burnt
inside the engine to make the parts move
and this made it much smaller than a
steam engine
20 years later factories were producing
thousands of cars every year
and new roads crossed the land
most of these cars used petrol
which comes from oil
in 1903 orville and wilbur wright
used a petrol engine to fly the world’s
first
airplane
things like the steam engine electricity
and the car changed the lives of
everyone on earth they also changed the
way that we get energy
today about 87 of the world’s energy
comes from burning coal oil and natural
gas
where do these fuels come from and how
do we use them today
coal oil and natural gas
come from things that were alive
millions of years ago
oil and natural gas come from animals
that lived in the sea
coal comes from plants that lived in wet
places such as land next to rivers or
lakes
over millions of years far under the
ground
they changed into coal oil
and natural gas we call these kinds of
fuel
fossil fuels and the oldest ones
are about 400 million years old
coal we have used coal
for a long time two thousand
years ago the roman people used it to
heat their homes
and make metals we
still use coal for these things today
but most coal is burnt in power stations
to make electricity
about 40 percent of the world’s
electricity comes from coal
every week somewhere in the world a new
power station that
burns coal is built
to make the electricity that your fridge
uses
in one year you need about
kilograms of coal
the biggest coal power stations burn
10 to 15 million tons of coal
every year a lot of that
coal comes in ships from thousands of
kilometers away
in some places we get this coal
from huge holes on the surface of the
earth
in other places the coal comes from
hundreds of meters
under the ground there is not
much room to move and the temperature
can be
40 degrees celsius or more
it is difficult to get enough clean air
and often too noisy to speak
getting the coal from under the ground
is dirty
dangerous work but millions of people do
it
every day every year
about five thousand of them die
oil in places like
saudi arabia nigeria
and venezuela there are lakes of
oil called oil fields under the ground
to get the oil people drill holes in the
ground
called oil wells
some of these wells are several
kilometers deep
in other places huge machines
called oil platforms drill wells under
the sea
there are often bad storms at sea
so oil platforms have to be very strong
under the water some platforms are as
tall
as skyscrapers the world’s tallest
buildings
countries with oil fields send the oil
to other countries
in long pipes or in huge ships called
oil tankers
the world’s biggest oil tankers can
carry
440 million litres of oil
that is as heavy as 350 000
family cars
oil contains many chemicals
the tankers take it to factories where
it is heated and cooled
to get the different chemicals from it
some of these chemicals are used to make
things like
plastic or clothes
however about 85 of the oil
is made into fuels
there are different types of fuel for
engines in
cars ships and planes
the factories also make fuel for heating
buildings
and for burning in power stations to
make electricity
every year we make about 60 million
new cars and thousands of ships and
planes
so every year we need more and more
oil natural
gas about 2
000 years ago people in china
made pipes from tall bamboo plants
they used them to drill wells and find
natural gas hundreds of meters under the
ground
the pipes carried the gas to their homes
where they used it for gas lights and
heating water
today we burn natural gas in factories
and power stations
we also use it in homes for heating and
cooking
there are even cars and buses which
drive on
natural gas instead of petrol
natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel
it produces much less pollution than
burning
coal or oil
when a person in britain cooks something
the natural gas that they use may come
from
norway russia or kazakhstan
how do they get the gas from these
places
often the gas goes through pipes
one gas pipe under the sea from norway
to britain
is one thousand two hundred kilometers
long
in other places the gas is cooled
to make it into a liquid
this liquid gas is put in ships
called gas tankers
a lot of the world’s natural gas is
found inside a type of rock
called shale in the past
it was too difficult and expensive
to get the gas from inside the rock
now in places like pennsylvania in the
usa
people are using water to break the
shale rocks under the ground
and get the gas in the first
10 weeks of 2011 300
new gas wells were drilled in the usa
the problem is that each well will
produce
millions of liters of polluted water
you have to clean all this water or keep
it somewhere safe
it is always the same story
today shale gas is the newest fossil
fuel
to bring good things for some people
new jobs and money and
bad things for others pollution from
dirty water
in rich countries fossil fuels have made
it possible for most
people to live a very comfortable life
will they destroy that life one day too
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chapter 3 energy
and our planet
in the waters of the gulf of mexico
between mexico and the usa
there are more than 2 300 oil platforms
on the 20th of april 2010
oil workers were drilling on one
platform
when gas from the well exploded
the oil platform was destroyed
and 11 workers died
after the accident oil started to escape
from the well at the bottom of the sea
it took two months for people to close
the well
in that time nearly 800 million liters
of
oil went into the sea
ugly black oil polluted beaches for
hundreds of kilometers
many birds and sea animals died
and people who worked in tourists and
fishing businesses
lost their jobs
as the world’s population grows
we need more and more energy
to find enough coal oil and natural gas
people are digging and drilling deeper
energy companies are searching for
fossil fuels
in places like alaska and the amazon
but pollution and accidents can cause
great damage to these beautiful natural
places
burning fossil fuels produces dangerous
gases some of them pollute our cities
and damage people’s health
every year about two million
people die because of air pollution
scientists think that other gases
like carbon dioxide co2
are changing the world’s climate
if a plane flies from singapore to los
angeles and back its engines produce
about
seven tons of co2 for every passenger on
the plane
since the steam engine was invented the
amount of
co2 in the air has grown by 35 percent
co2 catches heat from the sun
so this makes the climate warmer
because of this in some places there is
less rain than there used to be
farmers cannot grow enough food and
forests are burning in the hot dry
weather
in other places there is now too much
rain
terrible floods destroy farms and houses
on high mountains and in the arctic
and antarctic warmer weather is heating
the ice and snow
and changing it to water
this means that more water is going into
the sea
so the sea is getting higher
islands around the world are starting to
disappear
under the sea cities on the coast
like shanghai dubai and
venice may disappear one day
too many living things
are dying because a hotter climate
is changing the places where they live
from the forests of costa rica to the
ice of the arctic ocean
the land is changing and animals are
disappearing
the facts are frightening
every day the world loses about 150
different types of plants or animals
at the moment the richest countries in
the world
use most of the energy and produce
most of the pollution for example
the usa has only five percent of the
world’s population
but in any year it uses about 25
of all the world’s energy
it also produces about 45 percent of the
world’s
co2
australia produces more carbon pollution
per person than any other country
but as other countries get richer
their populations want more things like
tvs computers and cars
and that means they are starting to use
more and more energy to produce
and run them
around the world we use about 12 billion
liters of oil
19.8 billion kilograms of coal
and 10 billion cubic meters of natural
gas
every day but
scientists think that 40 or 50 years
from now
there will be no more oil
about 20 years after that we will have
no natural gas
finally in about 120 years
we will finish all of the world’s coal
one day all the fossil fuels will be
gone
we do not need to use fossil fuels
there are lots of other ways to produce
energy
the problem is that most of the world’s
car engines
heating machines and power stations
were built to use fossil fuels
changing this will take a long time
so a lot of people want to try to save
energy
too the good news
is that there are lots of ways to do
this
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chapter four saving energy
about half of the energy that we produce
is wasted electricity is lost in
power cables and cars waste fuel
as they wait in traffic
governments can save energy by building
better power stations for example
but we can help a lot too
what can we do to save energy
cars on the santa monica freeway
in los angeles thousands of people are
trying to get to work
but they are going nowhere
a driver in los angeles spends about
70 hours a year in traffic that is not
moving while long
lines of cars wait under the hot
californian sun
their engines are producing dangerous
gases
drivers look angrily at their watches
sometimes you cannot see the sun
in los angeles because of all the
pollution in the air
it is the same every morning in sao
paulo
moscow bangkok and many other cities
what about other ways to travel
walking and cycling to work or school
are great ways to save energy and stay
healthy as well
if you cannot cycle or walk somewhere
you can still save energy if you take a
train
or bus instead of driving
in a lot of cities people are joining
car sharing groups each person in the
group
drives their friends to work one day a
week
everyone saves petrol and money
and there are fewer cars on the road
food all the time
millions of tons of food are moving
around the world
and this uses huge amounts of energy
of course you cannot grow tea in iceland
or rice in qatar so we have to buy food
from other countries
it is great to eat italian spaghetti
or enjoy a hot cup of kenyan coffee
but it is also good to think about where
some of the food on our table
comes from if we want to save energy
we can try to buy more things that were
produced
in our country in
turkish supermarkets for example
you can buy bananas from animal in
turkey or from ecuador which is 12 000
kilometers away
people say you should not go into a
supermarket when you feel hungry
and it is probably true
supermarkets are full of fantastic
things
and it is easy for hungry shoppers to
buy
more food than they really need
in european countries each family throws
away
more than a thousand dollars of food
every year
twenty to twenty five percent of all the
food that they buy
some of that unwanted food has come in
ships from the other side
of the world so next time you go
shopping it may be a good idea to eat
something first
energy at home
imagine two power stations working
24 hours a day 365
days a year that is how much energy
people in britain waste by leaving
things like
tvs on standby turned on
and ready to use
did you know that leaving a tv
on standby all day can use the same
amount of
power as watching it for an hour
how many machines are on standby in your
house
can you turn any of them off
when you turn on a normal light bulb
only ten percent of the electricity it
uses
turns into light the other
ninety 90 is wasted as heat
using energy saving light bulbs
saves 80 percent of that electricity
and you can use them for much longer too
do you like to heat your house to 26
degrees celsius
in the winter or cool it
to 18 degrees celsius in the summer half
of the energy that we use at home
is used to heat or cool the house
you can save a lot of energy if you keep
your house at 22 degrees celsius
all year and put on warmer or
cooler clothes it also takes a lot of
energy to heat
water when you make a hot
drink it is good to heat just as much
water as you need not more
rubbish every day
people in greece throw away 8 million
plastic bottles around the world
we produce millions of tons of rubbish
every year some of this rubbish is
recycled
but most of it is thrown into big holes
in the ground
rubbish like this may be dangerous for
animals
and people for hundreds of years
recycling an old aluminium drinks
container
only uses 5 of the energy that we need
to produce a new one
rubbish is taken to places called
recycling centers
where it is put into different groups
later each different kind of rubbish
is broken into pieces and made
into new materials
recycling is easy to do
it is good for the natural world and it
saves a lot of energy
is there a recycling center near you
saving energy means thinking more about
the things that we do
every day if we do this
we can stop a lot of pollution and
save money too
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chapter five the power of the atom
on a cold afternoon in december 1951
a small group of scientists stood in a
room
in idaho usa
they watched excitedly as four
ordinary light bulbs were turned on
then they shouted and shook hands
they had just invented a new way to make
electricity
nuclear power
today nuclear power produces about
13 of the world’s electricity
one kilogram of nuclear fuel
can have as much energy as 1.5
million kilograms of coal
when nuclear power was invented
some people thought it was the answer to
all our energy problems
today many people are afraid of it
so what is nuclear power
and what are the dangers
everything around us is made of atoms
some metals like uranium are radioactive
which means that the center of the atom
can break
the process of breaking the center of
the atom
is called nuclear fission
and it is this process that produces
nuclear energy
uranium-235 the type of uranium that we
usually use for fuel
is found in rocks around the world
it is difficult and expensive to get it
from the rocks
and make it into fuel
in nuclear power stations sticks of
uranium
235 fuel are put inside a place
called a nuclear reactor
other sticks called control rods go
between
the sticks of fuel they stop the reactor
from becoming too
hot in most reactors
water is used to cool the fuel
and the water then becomes hot
this hot water moves through pipes
and heats clean water outside the
reactor
the clean water turns into steam that
moves steam
turbines
energy from nuclear fission travels
through
other things this moving energy
is called radiation and it makes
everything inside the reactor building
radioactive radiation
is very dangerous for people so
nuclear reactors have thick strong
walls these stop
water gas or anything inside the reactor
from escaping
about 30 countries have nuclear power
stations
and others want to build them
many people think that using nuclear
power
is better than burning fossil fuels
because it does not produce gases like
co2
other people worry about nuclear waste
and accidents
nuclear safety
old fuel and other waste from nuclear
reactors
is very radioactive and very dangerous
some waste is recycled and used in
reactors again
but a lot is kept in very strong
containers
under the ground this worries many
people
could nuclear waste get into water in
the ground one day
could people steal nuclear waste
and use it to make a bomb
some nuclear waste will be dangerous
for 20 000 years
that is a long time to keep something
safe
on the 25th of may 1986
nuclear fuel in a reactor at the
chernobyl power station
in the ukraine began to get hotter
and hotter workers could not
cool the reactor and finally it exploded
radioactive fuel and control rods
were thrown high into the air
fires in the reactor burnt for 15
days and radioactive smoke
traveled across europe and the black sea
by 2005 56 people had
died because of the accident
scientists think that in time about
4 000 people in the ukraine
belarus and other countries
may die because of chernobyl
today most nuclear power stations
are much safer than they were at the
time of chernobyl
but things can still go wrong
on the 11th of march 2011
a huge earthquake happened under the sea
near japan about 40 minutes later
a wave 14 meters high
hit the coast near the 40 year old
fukushima nuclear power station
water destroyed machines at the power
station
so people could not call the reactors
in the days after the accident teams of
brave engineers worked day and night
to keep the power stations safe
there were big explosions and
radioactive gas
went into the air later
radioactive water went into the sea
much less radiation escaped from
fukushima
than from chernobyl but it showed the
world
that safety in nuclear reactors
is still terribly important
nuclear fusion
around the world scientists are trying
to build
a new type of nuclear reactor
if they succeed nuclear power will be
much safer and it will also become
much more important the new reactors
will get energy
from nuclear fusion
nuclear fusion happens on the sun
and it produces a lot more energy than
nuclear fission
inside the sun atoms of hydrogen
join together to make bigger helium
atoms and this produces a huge amount of
energy
future nuclear fusion reactors
will not produce much waste and they
will also
be safer because you can stop the fusion
process
quickly so why
are we not using them today
imagine trying to put the sun inside a
room
and you will understand how difficult it
is to build a fusion reactor
to start nuclear fusion the atoms in the
fuel
must reach temperatures of about 150
million degrees
celsius at the moment
people are trying different ways to
start nuclear fusion
and keep the hot fuel from touching the
sides of the reactor
but it is very difficult
in the future we may power our cities
with nuclear
fusion but we have to find answers to a
lot of problems
first
while nuclear fuels continue to provide
power in many countries scientists
keep looking for new fuels that are
clean
and safe and some of their ideas are
quite
unusual
[Music]
chapter six super fuels
imagine growing fuel on trees
or getting it from rubbish
imagine cars that run on air or produce
water not pollution
all around the world people are making
surprising
new fuels
biogas
biogas is made from plants or natural
waste
by living things called bacteria
they break the waste down and produce
gases like methane and carbon monoxide
in most places the gases pollute the air
but at banderantes near sao paulo
in brazil pipes take the gas from
under the ground the gas
is burnt at a power station to produce
electricity
for 400 000 people
villagers in india use animal
and food waste to make biogas
bacteria break the waste down in a
special container
and the gas is used for cooking and
lights
just one kilogram of waste produces
enough biogas
to make a light work for four hours
in sweden they even make biogas
for cars from toilet waste
a year’s waste from 70 toilets
makes enough fuel for a small car to
travel
sixteen thousand kilometers
biofuels biofuels
are made from fuels that grow
the oldest biofuel is wood
but today we are using different kinds
of plants
and even old coffee to make new
biofuels
the problem with some biofuels is that
it takes a lot of land to grow the fuel
which means less land for growing food
if you want to fly a boeing 747
plane the 350 kilometers from
london to amsterdam on coconut biofuel
you will need to grow about three
million coconuts
there is another problem too
people may destroy forests to grow
plants for biofuel
in brazil cars and buses
have used a fuel called bioethanol for
years
bioethanol is great because we make it
from the waste
parts of plants that we already grow
for food most brazilian
bioethanol is made from sugarcane
the tall plant that we grow for sugar
the sugarcane is broken up in machines
and the liquid is taken to make sugar
the rest of the plant is turned into
paper
or used to make bioethanol
even the electricity that the bioethanol
factories use
comes from burning sugarcane
burning biofuels produces gases
like co2 but when we grow them
the plants take co2 out of the air
because of this sugarcane bioethanol
produces 78 percent less co2
than petrol
the newest biofuels are made from
very small living things called algae
algae produce more energy than other
biofuels
and they can grow in places where we do
not grow
food like seas and wasteland
in the future people want to change the
way that some bacteria
and plants grow in this way
they hope to get biofuels that work
better
or grow in different places
one day there may be huge algae farms in
the sea
and many buildings may grow biofuel
plants on their roofs
driving on air
electric cars do not burn fuel
devices called batteries keep
electricity
and use it to power the engine
people have driven them for years and
they are a great way to have
less pollution in city centers
but where does the electricity come from
it may come from burning coal for
example
future electric cars will not need to
get electricity from anywhere
people are developing new batteries
which use a metal
called zinc when zinc
mixes with oxygen from the air a
chemical process makes electricity
when the battery is finished the zinc
can easily
be recycled and used again
hydrogen the cleanest fuel
is hydrogen when hydrogen
burns it just makes water
we already have cars and even
helicopters
that use hydrogen but this gas
is difficult to produce
most hydrogen is made from fossil fuels
and this produces pollution
about four percent of hydrogen is made
from
water but this process uses a lot of
electricity
and can be dangerous
in 2010 engineers invented a machine
which uses energy from the sun
to make hydrogen other people are trying
to use bacteria to make it
these clean ways of making hydrogen
are still very new if they become
cheaper we may all drive hydrogen cars
in the future
scientists are developing lots of new
fuels
but it will be a long time before most
of us
can use them the biggest problem
is finding the money to make the
necessary changes
to things like cars and petrol stations
for example there are about 140
000 petrol stations in the usa today
but only 2 800 of them
sell bioethanol
renewable energy is energy which comes
from things that go
on and on like the sun or the wind
some of the fuels in this chapter are
renewable
and some are not
biofuels are renewable because we can
grow them again
every year hydrogen
is a renewable fuel when we make it from
water
but not when we make it from fossil
fuels
in the next few chapters we will look at
some other types of renewable
energy
[Music]
a bright future
the sunlight that reaches earth in one
hour
has as much energy as all the power that
people use
in a year but how can we get this
energy and use it on earth
solar means coming from the sun
so when you use sunlight to make things
hot
it is called solar thermal power
many buildings use materials like glass
and plastic to catch sunlight and heat
the building
in africa people use solar cookers
when light hits the surface of the
cooker it is reflected into the middle
the middle becomes hot enough to heat
water
or cook food in countries like
turkey and china people put solar water
heaters on their roofs
these are metal and glass boxes
with water pipes in them
the glass catches heat and the metal
reflects sunlight onto the water pipes
which carry the hot water down into the
houses
we can use sunlight to make electricity
too
with devices called solar cells
which are made of silicon when sunlight
hits the silicon
particles inside it move and this
makes electricity
one solar cell does not produce much
power
so we put the cells together to make big
solar panels at the moment
the best solar cells can only use about
25 of the sunlight that hits them
and they are an expensive way to produce
electricity
but people are inventing better and
cheaper
solar cells all the time
in the future we will use it to do more
and more things you can already buy
solar lights solar radios
and small solar panels for things like
computers and phones
we can use solar power to travel too
in july 2010 andre
borschberg flew a solar plane called
solar impulse for 26 hours before he
stopped
power for the four engines came from
twelve
thousand solar cells on the wings of the
plane
it was able to fly at night because of
batteries inside the plane
which kept solar energy
there are also solar boats and every two
years
in the world solar challenge solar cars
leave darwin on a 3 000 kilometer
journey across
australia they all try to be the first
to arrive in adelaide
and the fastest cars can reach a hundred
kilometers per hour
in sunny countries like spain china
and the usa they are building huge solar
power stations
some use solar panels and others use
devices called reflectors
to reflect sunlight onto water pipes
or tall towers the
anderson power station in spain
is as big as 70 football fields
it produces enough energy for 200
000 homes
imagine standing in the sahara desert
in 50 years time
the bright sun hurts your eyes
and the heat is fantastic
all around you can see tall towers
and thousands of solar reflectors
it is only a dream at the moment but
many people want to build hundreds of
solar power stations
in the sahara desert where it is hot and
sunny
for 365 days a year
just naught point three percent of the
sahara desert
gets enough sunlight to produce
electricity
for all the people in europe
[Music]
chapter eight when the wind blows
on a clear day you can see them from the
land
they look like huge metal flowers
growing out of the sea
when you get closer you realize
how big they are the sanet
wind farm is 12 kilometers off the
english coast
each of its 100 wind turbines
is 115 meters tall
as wind turns the turbines
generators inside them produce
electricity
together the turbines make enough power
for
200 000 homes
there are 250 wind power stations
called wind farms in britain
and people are building more every year
by 2020 britain may get
25 of all its energy from the wind
bahrain is famous for the strong winds
that blow at different times of the year
the world trade center in bahrain
is a skyscraper with three wind turbines
the turbines are 29 meters across
and they produce about 15 percent of the
electricity for the building
that is enough energy for 300 homes
the shape of the building moves the wind
towards the turbines
it was very difficult to build the
bahrain
world trade center because it was the
first building of its type
in the world the engineers had to stop
the moving turbines
shaking the building and destroying it
now skyscrapers with huge wind turbines
are appearing in cities around the world
some future skyscrapers will not
use turbines the building will turn
in the wind as the parts of the building
move generators between the floors
will produce power
because the wind will move faster at the
top
and slower at the bottom of the building
each floor will turn
in a different way what you can see from
your window
will change all the time
lots of city buildings now have small
wind turbines on the roof and you can
even buy one to power your house
wind turbines used to be ugly
but now there are lots of different
shapes and colors
and they are great for parks and city
centers
soon tourists will see a wind turbine
with
changing colors and pictures outside
buckingham palace in london for example
of course wind turbines do not
work when the wind is not blowing
but people are finding new ways to catch
or produce
enough wind when it is not very windy on
the ground
look at the sky and you will often see
the clouds moving
fast above you
mars wind turbines fly a few hundred
meters
above the ground their shape
makes them turn in the wind and that
produces electricity
long cables tie them to the ground
and carry the electricity
another idea is to use wind turbines
next to busy roads as cars go
past they move a lot of air
and this drives the turbines
in jinsha one china a tall tower stands
in a field of glass
the sun heats the air under the glass
the hot air moves up the tower and
wind turbines inside the tower make
electricity
in the future people are planning to
build towers like this
in places like australia and the usa
some of them will be higher than the
tallest skyscrapers
in the world
we have used the wind to sail for
thousands of years
but the engines of today’s big ships
use diesel fuel which comes from oil
however some new passenger ships
have both engines and sails
the sails on these modern ships are
moved by computers
so they can move and catch the wind
saving the ship a lot of fuel
sky sails are another great idea
because you can use them with any ship
even old ones they fly about
200 meters above the ship and help to
pull it through the water
how about sailing to work in a car
that uses the power of the wind
the green bird looks like a plane or a
boat
but it moves on land
sometimes it can reach 200 kilometers an
hour
the green bird uses clever technology
to move five times faster than the wind
the netherlands is a country of
windmills
old buildings with sails that turn in
the wind
the country’s 1200 windmills
are hundreds of years old and they are
used for lots of things
like moving water and making machines
work
now wind turbines that make electricity
are appearing all over the netherlands
for the people of the netherlands wind
power is both the past
and the future
[Music]
chapter 9 water world
i am standing by the seihan river in
turkey
and watching fish swimming in the water
how many rivers like this are there in
the world
think of all that water running down
towards the sea
moving water has much more energy than
the wind
and of course it never stops
hydroelectric power
a hydroelectric power station uses the
power of water to produce electricity
the taipo dam between brazil and
paraguay
is one of the largest hydroelectric
power stations in the world
it took forty thousand workers
nine years to build it and engineers had
to move
the parana river one of the greatest
rivers on earth
the taipo dam is as tall as a skyscraper
behind a dam water is kept in a lake
called a reservoir water from the
reservoir
moves down through huge pipes in the dam
the water turns turbines which turn
generators to produce electricity
the itaipu dam produces 90 percent of
paraguay’s electricity
as well as enough power for 600 million
people in brazil
dams can be good in many ways
in egypt there used to be terrible
floods on the river nile
after heavy rain but the aswan
dam has stopped the floods
water stays behind the dam in lake nasa
and farms can use this water when it is
dry
in turkey five dams on the euphrates
river
have changed the land around
farmers can grow much more food
and people from the cities spend their
weekends
enjoying the beautiful lakes
the biggest problem with dams is that
their reservoirs cover
a lot of land beautiful places
and old buildings often disappear
under the water and people have to leave
their homes
after engineers built the itaipu dam
people in boats worked hard to save
animals
as the water flooded the forest
they also moved thousands of trees and
plants
to higher places
at abu symbol in egypt
people saved two three thousand year old
egyptian
buildings from the waters of lake nasa
the huge buildings were cut into pieces
then built again in a higher place
the workers had to cut a lot of stone by
hand
and some of the stones were 30 tons
you do not have to build a huge dam
to get energy from rivers a lot of
people
in africa and asia make hydroelectric
power themselves they put
pipes and little turbines into rivers
in places where the water is moving fast
this produces enough electricity for one
or two houses
or sometimes a village
the smallest turbines only cost
about twenty dollars
there are more than a hundred thousand
of them in rivers in vietnam
of course we do not have to get power
only from rivers
97 of the world’s water
is in the sea now we are beginning to
use it
power from the sea
in 2008 passengers in plains flying to
porto
portugal looked down and saw
three strange shapes in the water
a few kilometers from the beach at
agusadora
each of these big red shapes was 142
meters long
in fact this was the world’s first wave
farm
and the strange shapes were wave
power generators in the future
we may see many more farms like these
near the portuguese coast
getting power from the restless waves of
the atlantic
when wave power generators go up and
down on the water
liquids inside them move
the liquids turn turbines
or push other devices to generate power
long cables under the sea carry the
electricity to the land
the great thing about wave power is that
you can get
electricity 24 hours a day
the problem is that the waves can be
too big storms can destroy the machines
or break the cables
getting power from the waves is still
very difficult
but people are developing new devices
all the time
in may 2010 a ship
pulled a 200 meter wave power generator
through atlantic waters to orkney
north of scotland in a few years
65 more machines will join it
and together they will produce power for
about
30 000 homes
building and using the generators will
mean
new jobs for hundreds of people in
scotland
near new york city six turbines sit at
the bottom of the east river
they are five meters across and they
look like
wind turbines but they get energy from
sea water that moves past
them twice a day
in places where rivers join the sea
the water can go up and down 10 meters
or more
so it moves very fast and has a lot of
energy
to use this energy we can put turbines
under the water or build dams
the world’s biggest dam that uses the
power of the sea
is at laurence in france
it is more than 300 meters long
and its 24 turbines produce enough power
for a city of more than
200 000 people
near the coast of kona hawaii
the weather is sunny and the sea is very
deep
the water is warm at the surface
but a thousand meters below this it is
10 to 20 degrees
celsius cooler people use this
temperature difference to make power
power stations like the one at keyhole
point in hawaii
use liquids like ammonia that become a
gas
at low temperatures
warm sea water heats the liquids
so they turn into gas
the gas moves turbines to generate
electricity
colder water from deeper under the sea
turns the gas back into a liquid so we
can use it again
many countries already get a lot of
their energy from water
for example norway gets 99
of its electricity from hydroelectric
power we have used hydroelectric power
for years
but in the future people will get more
energy
from the sea too we are still
learning how to do this but there are
lots of possibilities
after all seventy percent of our planet
is covered by water
[Music]
chapter 10 heat all around us
imagine you are swimming outside in the
beautiful blue waters of a hot
pool near reykjavik iceland
snow is falling all around you but the
water
is warm after a relaxing swim
you catch a bus into the city then walk
home
through the streets it is very
cold and the trees are heavy with snow
but there is no ice on the pavement
why because under your feet
hot water is heating the streets
geothermal energy comes from heat under
the ground
and people have used it for thousands of
years
the romans used geothermal water
to heat bath houses in new zealand
japan and iceland people enjoy
swimming in geothermal pools
iceland has cold winters and short
summers but it is also a land where hot
water and steam come up from under the
ground
in some places the steam is 250
degrees celsius
iceland’s five geothermal power stations
use the steam from wells to drive
turbines and produce about 25 percent of
the country’s electricity
in other places machines called pumps
take hot water from the ground and send
it through
pipes to houses and 87
of the buildings in iceland get their
hot water and heating
in this way hot water
under the roads and pavements keeps them
clear of snow
and safe in winter
in places like iceland steam comes out
of the ground
naturally in other places
pumps send cold water down through pipes
to hot dry rocks hundreds of meters
below
the rocks heat the water and make steam
a second pipe takes the steam from
under the ground
how safe is geothermal power
the answer is that it is not usually
dangerous
but it can be it is often difficult to
drill
geothermal wells the steam can explode
from the well
and it can bring dangerous gases with it
too
pumping cold water into the ground is
not always
safe either in basel
switzerland a geothermal power station
which used cold water was closed after
only six
days because in that time
there were ten thousand small
earthquakes
today we only get geothermal energy
from places where very hot rock lies
close to the surface
however the rocks become hotter as you
go
deeper everywhere on earth because the
center of the earth
is about 5500 degrees
celsius
the problem is that in most places you
have to go
down about 10 kilometers to find
enough heat some
oil wells are already this deep
but it is very expensive to drill them
so people do not do it yet for
geothermal wells
how hot is the ground under your feet
in most places around the world if you
dig down about
three meters the ground temperature
is 10 to 16 degrees celsius all year
devices called heat pumps use this heat
to turn a special liquid into a gas
the gas moves through pipes next to
water
as the gas loses heat energy and becomes
a liquid again
it heats the water
in cold countries hot water from heat
pumps is used to heat
buildings like schools houses
and swimming pools
when some materials become hot
particles inside them move producing
electricity
these are called thermoelectric
materials
on a summer day the streets of a city
become
very hot a road can be
70 degrees celsius
in the future some people want to put
thermoelectric materials under the roads
this could change the heat into
electricity
for things like street lights
[Music]
chapter 11 people power
in 1988 a plane called
daedalus flew 115 kilometers between the
greek islands of
crete and santorini
it is a very short flight for today’s
aeroplanes
but this plane did not have any engines
the power for the plane came from the
pilot
he used his legs like someone riding a
bicycle
to make the plane go forward
in a time before modern machines
people used the power of their bodies to
build the great wall of china
today people power is back
in a small village in malawi africa
children shout excitedly as they play on
a merry-go-round
it is the favorite meeting place for all
the village children
as they turn around and around a pump
uses their movement to bring water up
from a well under the ground
in africa getting clean water
is a problem for many people they may be
many kilometers away from rivers and
river water
is not always clean getting clean water
from
under the ground can be difficult
because
pumps with engines are expensive to use
and they often break these
merry-go-round play pumps mean that
villages and schools can have clean and
safe drinking water
and the children can have fun too
when you run you have a lot of energy
which comes from the movement of your
body
when you suddenly stop your body loses
this energy
we already have watches and small
medical devices
which can use energy that we make when
we move
in the future people like police
officers and soldiers
may wear devices on their legs to catch
this
lost energy and keep it in batteries
they could use the power for computers
radios
or other devices
in december 2008 most people walking
across
hachiko square tokyo probably did not
notice four yellow squares on the
pavement
as they hurried to work
the squares were made of special
materials
that make electricity when they change
shape
when people stood on the squares the
shape of the materials
changed and they produced electricity
the squares were only there for 20 days
but in that time they produced enough
power to make a tv
work for 400 hours
imagine putting these squares under all
the roads and pavements in tokyo
one day we may turn our streets into
power stations
moving people can produce a lot of
energy
but what about people who cannot move
about
sick people or people sitting on trains
even when we are resting our bodies
produce enough energy to power
two laptops most of this energy
is heat now people are developing
medical devices which get their power by
changing
body heat into electricity
soon doctors will use them to do things
like
getting information about their patients
blood for example
this will be useful in places like
africa
where many villages do not have
electricity
we can use body heat in other ways too
every day 250 000
people use stockholm central station
they eat and drink carry heavy bags
and run to catch trains and their bodies
produce a lot of heat when they do these
things
inside the station heat pumps
take heat from the air and use it to
heat water for a nearby building
it is a great way to get free energy
all you need is a lot of people
[Music]
chapter 12 nano power
in 2005 scientists in the usa
built a tiny car called the nano car
how small is it it is difficult to
imagine
something so small but a hair on your
head
is 20 000 times wider
and millions of times longer
the wheels of the nanocar were made from
balls of carbon atoms
scientists used heat to move the wheels
and drive the car
nanotechnology is building things from
atoms or from molecules which are atoms
joined together like h2o
in the future we will use it to make
tiny machines
called nanobots
millions of these machines will do
things like clean waste
and build or fix things
doctors may use them to help sick people
they could travel through our bodies and
fix
damage inside us
tiny generators called nanogenerators
will produce power they will get
energy from light or from movements
around them
for example blood moving around your
body
or sound moving through the air
in the future we may print nano
generators onto materials for making
clothes
they may power the phones in our pockets
heat our clothes in cold weather or
change the colors of a favorite dress
scientists have already invented the
first
nanogenerators tiny solar cells
most solar cells only use the light that
people can see
nano solar cells can also use a
different kind of light
called infrared light hot things produce
this light
all the time even in the dark
we already use nano solar cells for
making thin
solar panels but they are still very new
one day we may add them to liquids which
we can put onto the outside of houses
and cars
they will use the electricity that the
nano solar cells produce
while some people are making solar cells
which are too
small for us to see other people want to
put
huge solar panels into space
we will read about them in the next
chapter
[Music]
chapter 13. energy in space
imagine that the date is 2095.
you live in a world without oil
far above you huge shapes are moving
across the sky
but you cannot see them from the ground
like many places in the world your city
gets a lot of its energy from power
stations
in space it does not sound possible
but it may happen one day
we have used solar panels in space for
years
for example they power the satellites
that move around
earth and send us information about the
weather
now some people want to send solar
energy back to earth
how will they do this they plan to make
huge solar panels from very light
materials
and pack them into small containers
when they are in space they will open
and join together to make solar power
stations
space solar power stations will take
energy from the sun and send it back to
earth
where we will change it into electricity
gases and clouds stop a lot of solar
energy before it reaches the earth
but this is not a problem for solar
panels in
space if they move around the planet
they can stay where the sun is and work
24 hours a day
a company in california plans to put the
first panels into
space in 2016.
they will produce enough electricity for
250
000 homes when we send
spacecraft to other planets we often
have to find unusual ways to power them
some have engines which produce special
atoms
called ions to push them forward
others use nuclear fuel
in 2010 a japanese spacecraft called
icarus
began sailing towards venus
when particles from the sun hit its
solar sails
they pushed the spacecraft forward like
the wind pushes the sails of a ship
because of the success of icarus other
spacecraft
may use solar sails in the future
for more than 10 years scientists from
around the world
have lived and worked in space on the
international space station
in the future countries like china
russia and japan plan to build places to
live
and work on the moon people will need to
produce energy there
because they cannot take enough fuel
from earth
they can use solar power in the day
but nights on the moon are nearly two
weeks long
how will they get energy to use in the
dark
at nasa scientists have invented
special batteries to use on the moon
in the day the batteries use solar
energy to get
hydrogen and oxygen from water
in the night the battery mixes these
gases
so that they burn this produces
energy and leaves water which the
batteries can use again
since the apollo 17 spacecraft left the
moon in december
1972 nobody has visited the moon
one day people will go back
and this time with the help of new
devices
they will probably stay
[Music]
chapter 14 going local
we do not realize it but we use
space technology all the time
when we watch tv the pictures may come
from a satellite
hundreds of kilometers above the earth
it is the same when we make phone calls
or listen to the radio
far above our heads machines are working
for us
but we will never see most of them
a few hundred years ago people mainly
used the things they could see around
them
local people grew the food and made the
products that people needed
for fuel most people got wood from a
nearby forest
today the things that we buy and the
fuel that we use
often get to us from the other side of
the world
this wastes energy and what happens when
these things do not come
local power in october 1973
governments argued and countries in the
middle east
stopped selling oil to europe and the
usa
very soon life started to change
in the usa drivers waited for hours to
buy petrol
in europe people did not have enough
fuel to heat their houses
the problems only lasted for five months
but companies closed and thousands of
people
lost their jobs
what did we learn from this
the short answer is probably not very
much
most countries still get most of their
energy from fossil fuels
this often comes in pipes or ships from
thousands of kilometers away
in 2009 russia
and the ukraine argued about the price
of natural gas
so people stopped pumping it
in some places in europe people had
no heating in the cold winter
and the temperature was down to minus 10
degrees
celsius slowly
different countries are starting to
produce their own
energy in different ways so they need
less
fuel from other places brazil
already produces a lot of biofuels
and norway and iceland get most of their
power from hydroelectric
and geothermal energy
in the future sunny spain may get a lot
of power from
solar energy and stormy island countries
like britain
will use wind turbines and wave power
generators
today we produce electricity in huge
power stations
and send it through cables to places far
away
this wastes a lot of energy
big power stations lose heat
and more energy is lost when the
electricity travels through the power
cables
surprisingly about 66
of the energy from burning fossil fuels
in power stations
never reaches our homes
sometimes a group of power stations stop
working or big power cables burn
when this happens the lights of big
cities
may go out trains stop running
and people sleep in their offices
because they cannot go home
so what can we do about these problems
is there a better way to make and send
electricity
we may not find an answer to all these
problems
but producing more power locally will
help
in the future we may produce some of our
electricity nearer to our homes
as new energy technologies become
cheaper
we will use them in more and more places
people may get their electricity from a
wind turbine in their street
or a wave power generator at a local
beach
and not from a big power station on the
other side of the country
our houses will make more electricity
too
many will have solar panels or wind
turbines
on their roofs we may also put
tiny turbines in kitchen and bathroom
water pipes
heat pumps in our walls may make hot
water for the house
and perhaps the floors under our feet
will make electricity when we walk on
them
each of these devices will only make a
little power
but when we put them together they will
make a lot
making things locally
why is it better to buy books and music
that goes straight to a computer instead
of onto paper or plastic
the answer is that it saves a lot of
energy
it saves fuel and materials for making
the products and
their containers as well in the future
some companies will save energy by
making things in a different way
recently we have invented printers which
real objects from computer designs
now they can even print objects with
moving parts
instead of making things like sports
shoes and
phones in factories and sending them to
other countries
companies may sell designs for them
people will buy the designs and print
the products
at local object printing shops
or even at home
object printing will be great for small
products
but what about making something big like
a car
in 2010 visitors to a car show in los
angeles were shown a very different way
to make
cars there were extraordinary designs
for cars made from extra light
and extra strong materials
the most surprising idea was the maybach
drs a future car
which will make itself from living
materials
it will grow like a plant
if we can invent living materials
they will get energy from the sun in
order to grow
scientists will develop special ways to
tell these materials
to grow into the parts of a car or
something else
slowly the parts will appear
like fruit growing on a tree
instead of sending heavy metal car parts
in
ships companies will buy and sell
the information that they need to grow
the different parts
when we throw away living materials
bacteria in the ground will break them
down
into pieces they will not produce
any rubbish or pollution
in the future people may want to grow
many different products
like chairs and houses
living materials are still just an idea
we have not made them yet but one day
our factories may turn into farms
imagine a world where products change
when we want them to it sounds like
something from a hollywood film
but a lot of people are studying this
idea in universities around the world
they think that one day millions of
nanobots will join together
and make themselves into objects at home
each nanobot will be too small for our
eyes to see
the objects will change when we want
them to
computers will tell the nanobots to move
and become a different shape if this
happens one day
we will not need to throw anything away
if there is an object that we do not
need
we will make it into something else
imagine a desk which becomes a chair
when you do not need to work or a coat
which gets longer when it rains
it sounds impossible but some
scientists believe that it will happen
in 50 to 100 years
[Music]
chapter 15 where
next
today about 7 billion people live on
earth
in 2050 the population will be more than
9 billion this means
millions more cars tvs
fridges and computers and
many other machines that we have not
invented yet
where will we get the energy for all
these things
in this book we have read about lots of
ways to produce
and save energy some ideas
are very old others are quite
new and some of them look far
into the future to a time when
objects can make themselves and
people are living in space
which energy technologies will we use
most in the future
we do not know the answer to this
question
but we do know that we cannot use fossil
fuels
ten years ago people argued about the
idea that pollution from fossil fuels
was changing the world’s climate
today scientists agree that it
is and they think it is happening very
fast we are starting to build a future
without fossil fuels turbines are
appearing in rivers
and on hills around the world and people
are starting to use new fuels
every year scientists are inventing new
ways to make electricity
from the things around us we know
a lot of ways to save energy and some of
us can even try to produce it
ourselves the big question is can we
change in time
before we destroy a lot of the natural
world
and the answer we will have to wait and
see
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
you