Electric cars will not be really much cleaner than autos powered by mineral fuel

Electriccars will not be really much cleaner than autos powered by mineral fuels untilthey rely less on electricity produced from usual coal-fired power plants.

 “Forelectric vehicles to become a major green alternative, the power fuel has tomove away from

coal,or cleaner coal technologies have to be developed,” said Jared Cohon, thechairman of a National

ResearchCouncil report released on Monday. About half of US power is produced by

burningcoal, which gives off many times more of traditional pollutants than naturalgas, and about

twiceas much of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Nuclear and renewable powerhave to

generatea larger portion of US power for electric cars to become much greener comparedto

gasoline-poweredcars, Cohan, who is president of Carnegie Mellon University, said in aninterview.

Advancesin coal burning, like capturing carbon at power plants for permanent burialunderground,

couldalso help electric cars become a cleaner alternative to vehicles powered byfossil fuels, he said.

Pollutionfrom energy sources did $120 billion worth of damage to human health,agriculture and

recreationin 2008, and electricity was responsible for more than half of the damage, saidthe NRC

report.

 Electric cars have their benefits such as reducing imports of foreign oil. Butthey also have hidden

costs.Materials in electric car batteries are hard to produce, which adds to theenergy it takes to make

them.In fact, the health and environmental costs of making electric cars can be 20percent greater

thanusual cars, the report said.

 The report estimated that electric cars could still cost more than gas-poweredcars to operate and

manufacturein 2030 unless US power production becomes cleaner.[来源:]

1.Why are electric cars not clean enough?

  A. Because they run tooslowly             B. Because they are too expensive

  C. Because they rely on coal-fired power.      D.Because they give off more carbon dioxide.

2.We can infer from the passage that ______.

  A. electric cars will soon take the place of gas-powered cars

  B. no one holds hope for electric cars at present

  C. electric cars waste more energy than before

  D. some people believe that electric cars are cleaner

3.The underlined word “them” refers to “______”.

  A. electric cars     B.batteries       C.producers        D. materials

4.Which of the following is NOT mentioned as a way to make electric cars cleaner?

  A. Developing cleaner coaltechnologies.        B. Making electric carsrun faster.

  C. Generating more unclear power.            D. Making advances in coal burning.

试题答案

【答案】

 C

 D

 A

 B

【解析】