ENERGY HAS CHANGED HOW PEOPLE LIVE

Muscle power, fueled by food and translated into mechanical energy, was the primary energy resource used by early humans for millions of years. But over time, people have taken advantage of other kinds of energy transformations, using machines and fuels to help do their work. As an economy becomes more developed, a larger variety of energy sources are tapped, and the energy consumed per person increases.

It's not a coincidence that civilization-science, education, and the arts-has advanced as energy usage has increased. Harnessing energy and putting it to work frees people from the time-consuming labor of making food, clothing, and shelter. Consider the energy that goes into preparing a bath. In five minutes, you can fill a tub with hot water. 150 years ago, you had to chop wood, light a fire, fetch water, heat the water, and pour it into a washtub. Before modern heating, plumbing, and food processing, most people had very little time for education or leisure activities.

Wood was long the principal-in some areas the only-fuel. It was used not only for heating and cooking, but also as source of charcoal for reducing ores to metals. For many centuries, smoke and ash blanketed towns in colder climates, due to wood's high carbon content and relatively low burning point.

The first fossil fuels to be used were surface deposits of asphalt, peat, and coal, along with oil that seeped to the surface and gas vented from underground reservoirs. Coal was difficult to mine with primitive tools. Although it was used to some extent in England during Roman times, it did not become widely used until the 1700s, when it was understood that coke from coal could be substituted for charcoal in the reduction of ores.

Petroleum has been used throughout recorded history, to line canals, seal joints in boats, build roads, and fuel lamps. Initially, people relied on oil that seeped to the surface. But as early as 600 BC, Confucius described 100-foot-deep wells yielding water and natural gas along the Tibetan border. To transport oil and natural gas from well sites, the Chinese built extensive pipelines of bamboo.

While oil became an important commercial commodity in Europe in the 1700s, the modern petroleum industry was born in the 1800s in the United States, capitalizing on advances in drilling. The invention of the internal-combustion engine stimulated petroleum production starting in the early 1900s. Further advances in the refining of petroleum led to petrochemicals. These became the building blocks of a host of new products in the 20th century, including plastics, pharmaceuticals, and fabrics.

Oil has fueled most of global energy consumption since World War II. In 1950, oil accounted for approximately one quarter of the world's energy use; today it accounts for 40 percent.

U.S. energy consumption has grown dramatically since World War II. As developing countries industrialize, world energy consumption is increasing at a faster rate than in the U.S.

From the first steam engines to today's best gas turbines, efficiency in energy use has increased 50 fold, while the amount of carbon in the world's energy mix has declined at an average annual rate of 0.3 percent.

Вариант III

1. Перепишите и переведите предложения. Подчеркните в них Participle I и Participle II и установите их функции в предложении – определение, обстоятельство или часть глагола – сказуемого (см. образец выполнения № 1).

1. All objects surrounding us are composed of different substances.

2. USA is a highly developed industrial country.

3. While absorbing the energy of cosmic rays the upper atmosphere becomes radioactive.

4. These reactions convert hydrogen into helium, giving off a great amount of light and heat.

5. In recent years, Russia has frequently been described in the media as an energy superpower.

6. The sector is rapidly developing, with an aim of increasing the total share of nuclear energy from current 16.9% to 23% by 2020.

7. If heated molecules of the material move faster.

2. Перепишите и переведите предложения. Подчеркните в них модальные глаголы или их эквиваленты (см. образец выполнения № 2).

1. Every technical student is to study English for some years.

2. You should study more if you want to pass your exam.

3. We had to stay after lessons as we couldn’t solve that problem.

4. As the student was late he was not allowed to enter the classroom.

5. He could not complete his research in time as he worked very slowly.

6. Heat is a form of energy and may be measured in the units in which energy is measured.

7. In spite of all the hardships he had to overcome, Yablochkov continued working in the field of electricity to the day of his death.

8. About 1 trillion rubles ($42.7 billion) is to be allocated from the federal budget to nuclear power and industry development before 2015.

3. Перепишите и письменно переведите на русский язык следующие предложения. Определите видовременную форму и залог сказуемого (см. образец выполнения № 3).

1. Best energy sources depend on many factors-how the energy is being used, where it is being used, etc.

2. Coal is widely used for power generation in many fast-developing countries.

3. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, significant progress has been made in the efficient use of fossil fuels.

4. Efficiency of hybrid-fuel cars will be improved by capturing kinetic energy from the wheels to power the battery.

5. We often use plastics nowadays.

6. Scientists have found ways of measuring the sizes and positions of bodies in the Universe.

7. Scientists had solved many interesting problems by the end of the 19th century.

8. Iron is referred to as the most important metal of our metallic age.

9. The name electron was given to the small negative particle discovered by Thomson.

10. The ignition was followed by combustion.

4. Перепишите предложения и переведите их на русский язык, обращая внимание на разные значения глаголов to be, to have, to do (см. образец выполнения № 4) .

1. Some energy sources have advantages for specific uses or locations.

2. For renewable energy resources to become more widely used, hurdles have to be overcome.

3. World reserves of fossil energy are to last for many more decades.

4. These systems do not use solar cells.

5. He is still doing his ordinary everyday job for the company.

6. Did the company guarantee the delivery of each lot without delay?

7. Each country in the world, even each state of the United States, has its own system of law.

8. In Britain most court cases are open to the public.

9. When you go to America you have to get a visa.

5. Перепишите и переведите следующие предложения, обращая внимание на неличные формы глагола (см. образец выполнения № 5).

1. Hydrogen, when burnt, produces water.

2. Today’s methods include «reforming», which uses heat to separate hydrogen from hydrocarbons.

3. When pure hydrogen gas is formed, it will immediately evaporate, and then condense with oxygen to become water.

4. Automakers are developing fuel cells extracting hydrogen from gasoline or methanol.

6. Перепишите и переведите следующие предложения, обращая внимание на перевод зависимого и независимого причастных оборотов (см. образец выполнения № 6).

1. Having built a new automobile plant, we increased the output of cars and buses.

2. Knowledge being the most valuable wealth of our times, the information theory became of great importance for the national economy.

3. On this planet, hydrogen is an unstable element existing in stable from only in combination with other molecules.

4. Working with machines, sharp tools, motors one must always be careful.

5. Knowledge being the most valuable wealth of our times, the information theory became of great importance.

6. The energy used per second is proportional to the frequency.