经济学人下载:氢能--再看一眼玩具箱(1)

Conventional wisdom holds that battery-powered cars are the future of motoring.
传统观点认为，电池驱动汽车是汽车驾驶的未来。

But Hyundai, a big South Korean vehicle-maker, is not so sure.
但是韩国大型汽车制造商现代汽车却不这么认为。

Over the past few months it has been running a worldwide public-relations campaign
在过去几个月，该公司一直在进行全球性的公关活动，

extolling the virtues of an alternative source of electrical power—fuel cells.
吹捧一种可替代电源——燃料电池的优点。

Instead of storing and then releasing electricity gathered from the mains in the way that a battery does,
电池是储存并释放从电源收集的电力，和电池不同，

a fuel cell generates current from a chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen comes from the air.
燃料电池通过氢和氧之间的化学反应产生电流。氧气来自空气。

The hydrogen, suitably compressed, is stored in a tank on board the vehicle, and is replenished at a filling station, like petrol.
经过适当压缩的氢气被储存在车辆上的油箱内，并在加油站加气，就像加汽油一样。

Unlike a battery, a fuel cell does create exhaust. But that exhaust is simply the reaction product of hydrogen and oxygen, namely water.
和电池不用，燃料电池确实会产生废气。但这种废气只是氢和氧的反应产物，即水。

Hyundai's campaign features members of BTS, a mop-topped South Korean boyband,
现代汽车的广告代言人是BTS的成员，BTS是韩国男团

staring dreamily into the middle distance amid backdrops of natural beauty. As a reminder of fuel cells' environmental advantages, water is everywhere.
成员们在自然美景的背景下，凝视着远方。为了暗示燃料电池的环境优势，水无处不自。

It falls as snow. It roils in oceans. It floats gently through forests as mist.
它像雪一样落下。它在海洋中激荡。它像薄雾般在森林中缓缓飘过。

The marketing may be silly, but Hyundai is serious. The firm already sells battery-powered vehicles,
这种市场营销可能有些愚蠢，但韩国现代是认真的。该公司已经开始销售电动汽车，

but it is hedging its low-carbon bets by developing hydrogen ones as well.
但它还通过开发氢汽车来避免其低碳投资的损失。

The advertising campaign is designed to sell the Nexo, the firm's second fuel-cell car, which was launched last year.
该广告活动是为了销售Nexo，该公司在去年推出的第二款燃料电池汽车。

And Hyundai is not the only company keeping its options open in this way.
现代并不是唯一一家以这种方式公开其方案的公司。

On June 5th Toyota, maker of the Prius, the world's best selling battery-hybrid vehicle,
6月5日，全球最畅销混合电动汽车，普锐斯的制造商丰田宣布

announced a joint venture with several Chinese carmakers to develop fuel-cell technology.
与几家中国汽车制造商成立合资企业，开发燃料电池技术。

An updated version of Toyota's Mirai, another hydrogen-powered car, is due out later this year.
丰田旗下另一款氢汽车Mirai的升级版将于今年晚些时候推出。

Hydrogen is enjoying a purple patch, then, and not just among carmakers.
氢气不仅只在汽车制造商中享有盛誉。

It is being touted as a means of propelling buses and lorries, and even ships and aircraft.
它被吹捧为推动公共汽车和卡车，甚至船舶和飞机的一种手段。

There is talk of it replacing natural gas as a source of heat, of it being used to store the surplus output of solar and wind power stations,
有说它可以替代天然气成为一种热源，可以被用来储存太阳能和风力发电站的剩余产出，

of it being employed as a chemical feedstock and even of it replacing coke as a means of extracting metallic iron from its ore.
可以被用作一种化工原料，甚至可以替代焦炭成为从矿石中提取金属铁的一种方式。

If all this came to pass, then hydrogen would become a dominating factor in human life in the way that hydrocarbons currently are.
如果这一切都实现了，氢就会像现在的碳氢化合物一样成为人类生活中的一个主导因素。

It would, in other words, usher in a hydrogen economy.
换句话说，它将会开辟一个氢能经济。