2016年12月六级第3套仔细阅读 Passage 1 原文翻译及答案解析

Dr. Donald Sadoway at MIT started his own battery company with the hope of changing the world's energy future. It's a dramatic endorsement for a technology most people think about only when their smartphone goes dark. But Sadoway isn't alone in trumpeting energy storage as a missing link to a cleaner, more efficient, and more equitable energy future.

麻省理工学院的唐纳德·萨道维博士创办了自己的电池公司，希望改变世界的能源未来。这是对一项大多数人只在智能手机没电时才会想到的技术的戏剧性认可。但萨道维并非孤军奋战，他倡导储能是通往更清洁、更高效、更公平能源未来的缺失环节。

Scientists and engineers have long believed in the promise of batteries to change the world. Advanced batteries are moving out of specialized markets and creeping into the mainstream, signaling a tipping point for forward-looking technologies such as electric cars and rooftop solar panels.

科学家和工程师长期以来一直相信电池改变世界的潜力。先进电池正从专业市场逐渐进入主流，标志着电动汽车和屋顶太阳能电池板等前瞻性技术的转折点。

The ubiquitous (无所不在的) battery has already come a long way, of course. For better or worse, batteries make possible our mobile-first lifestyles, our screen culture, our increasingly globalized world. Still, as impressive as all this is, it may be trivial compared with what comes next. Having already enabled a communications revolution, the battery is now poised to transform just about everything else.

当然，无处不在的电池已经走了很长的路。无论好坏，电池使我们以移动为主的生活方式、屏幕文化以及日益全球化的世界成为可能。然而，尽管这一切令人印象深刻，但与即将到来的相比可能微不足道。在促成了通信革命之后，电池现在正准备改变几乎所有其他事物。

The wireless age is expanding to include not just our phones, tablets, and laptops, but also our cars, homes, and even whole communities. In emerging economies, rural communities are bypassing the wires and wooden poles that spread power. Instead, some in Africa and Asia are seeing their first light-bulbs illuminated by the power of sunlight stored in batteries.

无线时代正在扩展，不仅包括我们的手机、平板电脑和笔记本电脑，还包括我们的汽车、家庭甚至整个社区。在新兴经济体中，农村社区正在绕过传输电力的电线和木杆。相反，非洲和亚洲的一些人正看到他们的第一盏灯泡由存储在电池中的太阳能点亮。

Today, energy storage is a $ 33 billion global industry that generates nearly 100 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year. By the end of the decade, it's expected to be worth over $ 50 billion and generate 160 gigawatt-hours, enough to attract the attention of major companies that might not otherwise be interested in a decidedly pedestrian technology. Even utility companies, which have long viewed batteries and alternative forms of energy as a threat, are learning to embrace the technologies as enabling rather than disrupting.

如今，储能是一个价值330亿美元的全球产业，每年产生近100吉瓦时的电力。到本十年末，预计其价值将超过500亿美元，产生160吉瓦时，足以吸引那些可能对一项相当普通的技术不感兴趣的大型公司的注意。即使是那些长期以来将电池和替代能源视为威胁的公用事业公司，也在学习拥抱这些技术，将其视为推动而非破坏的力量。

Today's battery breakthroughs come as the world looks to expand modern energy access to the billion or so people without it, while also cutting back on fuels that warm the planet. Those simultaneous challenges appear less overwhelming with increasingly better answers to a centuries-old question: how to make power portable.

当今的电池突破出现之际，世界正寻求将现代能源扩展到没有能源的约十亿人，同时减少导致地球变暖的燃料。随着对一个世纪老问题——如何使电力便携——的答案越来越完善，这些同时出现的挑战似乎不那么令人不知所措。

To be sure, the battery still has a long way to go before the nightly recharge completely replaces the weekly trip to the gas station. A battery-powered world comes with its own risks, too. What happens to the centralized electric grid, which took decades and billions of dollars to build, as more and more people become "prosumers," who produce and consume their own energy onsite?

诚然，在每晚充电完全取代每周去加油站之前，电池还有很长的路要走。电池驱动的世界也伴随着自身的风险。随着越来越多的人成为“产消者”，即在现场生产和消耗自己的能源，花了数十年和数十亿美元建造的集中式电网会怎样？

No one knows which — if any — battery technology will ultimately dominate, but one thing remains clear. The future of energy is in how we store it.

没有人知道哪种电池技术（如果有的话）最终会占主导地位，但有一点是清楚的：能源的未来在于我们如何储存它。