VOA常速英语:改进街道照明可以减少碳排放

Our increasingly industrialized world needs huge amounts of electrical energy,but our power plants still rely mostly on technology introduced as early as the 19th century - coal-powered plants, hydroelectric dams or somewhat newer nuclear energy, all of which have their own shortcomings.
我们日益工业化的世界需要大量的电能，但是我们的发电厂仍然主要依赖于19世纪初引进的技术——火电厂、水电大坝、或者较新一些的核能，所有这些都有自己的缺点。

Renewable sources, such as solar plants and wind turbines, have just started making inroads in lowering harmful emissions, while safer fusion-based nuclear plants are believed to be many decades off.
可再生能源，例如太阳能发电厂和风力涡轮机，刚刚开始大举降低有害气体的排放，而更安全的聚变核电厂则被认为还要再等几十年。

But scientists say we can slow down global warming by lowering energy demands for street lights.
但是科学家们说，我们可以通过减少路灯所需电能来减缓全球变暖。

These common features of the world’s urban areas require a lot of electricity.
这些在全球城市地区随处可见的东西需要大量的电能。

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that in 2012,lighting for buildings, streets and highways in the U.S. used about 274 billion kilowatt hours.
据美国能源信息管理局估计，2012年美国建筑物、街道和公路的照明使用了大约2740亿千瓦时电能。

In a bid to make Copenhagen the world’s first carbon-neutral city by 2025, scientists in the Danish capital are testing a variety of new street lighting technologies.
为使哥本哈根在2025年时成为全世界第一个碳中性城市，丹麦首都的科学家们正在测试一系列新的街道照明技术。

Kim Brostrom is the chief technical officer of the Danish Outdoor Lighting Lab.
基姆·波斯达姆是丹麦户外照明实验室的首席技术人员。

“We have installed nine kilometers of streets, we have 280 masts placed here, we have 50 different solutions, we have 10 different management systems, and we have a lot of different sensors and things out in the open area."
“我们已经安装了9公里的街道，放置了280根灯柱，协商出50种不同的解决方案，我们有10种不同的管理系统，我们还有许多不同的传感器和放置在开放区域的东西。”

Chief science officer Jakob Andersen says the lights can be managed individually from a tablet computer or a smart phone.
首席科学家雅各布·安德鲁斯表示说，可以用平板电脑或智能手机对这些路灯进行单独管理。

“You can monitor the run time, the efficacy, the lumen output or the power consumption, and then we do real time measurements on the lux levels on the street level."
“你可以监控路灯亮着的时间、效能、光强、以及功率消耗，然后我们会针对街道上的光亮情况采取实时措施。”

The main goal is to lower energy consumption when the light is not needed. So the lamp brightens up only when it senses an approaching pedestrian, cyclist or vehicle.Some of them even have a backup wind generator or a solar cell.
主要目标是要在不需要照明的时候降低能耗。因此路灯只有在感应到有行人、自行车和车辆靠近时才会点亮。其中一些路灯甚至有备用的风力发电机和太阳能电池。

Scientists say installing the smart lights city-wide could save up to 85 percent of the current budget for illuminating the Copenhagen streets.
科学家们表示说，如果在整个城市范围内安装这些智能路灯，可以节省目前哥本哈根街道照明预算的85%。