本集內容

Electric car island 電動汽車島

學習要點

有關 “energy （能源）” 的詞匯

邊看邊答

What is the electricity in the cars used for at nighttime?

文字稿

The savage beauty of Porto Santo attracts tourists who love nature. But people need energy and the way it's generated here is damaging nature. This pollution's coming from the diesel generator which powers the island's homes. Transporting the diesel is expensive and it's fuelling climate change.

波爾圖桑塔的原始美景吸引著熱愛大自然的游客。但是人們的生活需要能源，而這里制造能源的方式正在破壞自然環境。（畫面中的）這種污染來自島上居民使用的柴油發電機。運輸柴油非常昂貴，運輸過程也加劇了氣候變化。

The local government want clean, renewable energy instead. But wind power and solar power ebb and flow, so they need a way of storing energy for use at nighttime. Here's the chosen solution - the electric car, but not as we know it.

當地政府想要的是清潔的、可再生能源。但是風能和太陽能不夠穩定，所以它們需要一種儲存能量的方法，以供夜間使用。這就是他們選擇的解決方案——電動汽車，但不是我們所知道的那種電動汽車。

In future, electric vehicles here will be fitted with a reversible battery that stores energy for the electricity grid. So how does a reversible battery work?

未來，這里的電動汽車將配備一種可逆電池，為電網儲存能量。那么可逆電池是如何工作的呢？

When the Sun is shining, the electricity flows out of the grid, down the cable and into the car. Then it's stored in the battery until nighttime, when it flows back out of the car, up the cable and into the grid to power people's homes. The car is smart, so it keeps enough power for itself to be driven.

當陽光充足時，電力從電網中流出，順著電纜流入汽車。然后它被儲存在可逆電池里，直到夜晚，它再流出汽車，通過電纜進入電網，為用戶家庭供電。這輛汽車很智能，所以它還能保持足夠的動力供駕駛使用。

On Porto Santo, some police [cars] are already powered by electricity. To run an effective backup for the local grid, half the cars on the island, like this electric taxi, will need to store power as well as using it.

在波爾圖桑塔，一些警車已經靠電力驅動。為了給當地電網提供有效的電力備份，島上一半的汽車，比如這款電動出租車，需要儲存和使用電力。

So is this the road to the future? Well, a couple of years ago, if you'd suggested that car batteries could play a major part in supporting an electricity grid, a lot of people would have laughed. But that is exactly what’s happened. The electricity revolution is going to create a lot more surprises.

這是通往未來的道路嗎？幾年前，如果你說汽車電池可以在支持電網方面發揮重要作用，很多人都會覺得這是個笑話。但事實正是這樣。電力革命將帶來更多的驚喜。

詞匯

generated 產生，制造（能量）

renewable 可再生的

reversible 可逆的

electricity grid 電網

powered 驅動，為……提供動力

問題答案

At nighttime, the stored electricity flows back out of the car, up the cable and into the grid to power people's homes.