Food made from atmospheric carbon could feed the world while helping to fight climate change, according to Solar Foods, a Finnish company founded in 2017.“We can collect CO2 anywhere,” said its CEO Pasi Vainika, whose company has developed a protein powder made using CO2. “That’s a strategic shift where raw materials are in the air. ” The protein powder, called Solein, can be turned into meat and dairy substitutes or added tofoods and shakes.
Solar Foods uses special units to pull CO2 from the atmosphere. To turn it into protein,microbes (微 物),similar to those in the production of wine and yogurt, will be fed on it to grow and reproduce. During the process, water is split into hydrogen and oxygen. Along with a growth medium containing necessary minerals, the three gases are pumped in to feed the microbes. Harvested and dried, that remaining mixture becomes Solein—a yellow powder made up of single-cell protein, with a nutrient composition similar to wheat flour.
Solar Foods claims that Solein removes most of the emissions associated with modern agriculture, which is responsible for almost one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions. “One kilogram of Solein sends out 0.2 kilogram of CO2e(二 氧化碳当量).In comparison.beef herds produce around 100 kilograms and chicken 10 kilograms,” said Vainikka. “ We can rermove the climate impact of modern food systems on the planet, which today account for about 30 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.” He further stressed that while the company’s factories also require some land used for industrial farming, only about one-tenth of the land is needed compared to photosynthesis (光合作用）. “We could free up agricultural land to grow back forests,” he added, “and those remove carbon permanently from the atmosphere.”
Probably optimists are now contenting themselves with the pleasant scene of masses of trees absorbing CO2: on the planet. However, while that may sound great, Vainikka put it right, “It can happen only if we produce enough Solein from CO, to replace meat and dairy at a large scale.”And that still remains a long way to go.
1. What can we say about Solein?| A．It is in the air. | B．It can be changed into meat. |
| C．It can take in CO2. | D．It is good for the environment. |
| A．Wine and water. | B．Water and minerals. |
| C．Mierobes and yogurt. | D．Wine and microbes. |
| A．Its present situation. | B．Its possible benefits. |
| C．Its production process. | D．Its potential drawbacks. |
| A．Air Protein Produced, CO, Reduced |
| B．Collecting Air, Removing CO2 |
| C．Climate Changing, Danger Coming |
| D．Protect Earth, Save Ourselves |
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【推荐1】The Aral Sea was once the world's fourth largest lake. Filled with salt water and at least 24 species of fish, the Aral Sea supported a large fishing industry. In the 1960s, water from the Aral Sea started to be used to irrigate dry fields to produce cotton. Three quarters of the water was pumped from the sea over the next two decades, leaving behind a salt-covered desert. The disappearing Aral Sea split into two separate lakes-the small Northern Sea and a much larger body of water to the south.
By that time, most fish in the Aral Sea were gone. Salty irrigation water soon damaged the soil in the cotton fields, so huge amounts of chemical pesticides(杀虫剂)and fertilizers were used trying to keep the fields productive, which could be found in the groundwater and drinking water although must cotton fields disappeared, And the wind picked up salt from the dried-up lake and carried it to farmland far from the Aral. Besides, people who lived in the area experienced many health problems.
Today, however, there is some hope for the region. In the late 1990s, people in Kazakhstan used sand and soil to build a dam that would prevent the Syr Dar'ya river water that fed the lake from flowing, out of the lake. They also decided to take less water from the river for irrigation. The water level began to rise, and places that had been completely dry for decades began to show signs of life. People who lived nearby began to believe that the Aral Sea might return.
A permanent dam, the Kok-aral dam, was completed in August 2005. By April 2006, the water level had already risen three meters, and the water was less salty. The northern part of the Aral Sea may soon be a much healthier place to live for both fish and people.
1. What aspect of the Aral Sea does paragraph 1 focus on?| A．Description of the landform. | B．Protection of the ecosystem. |
| C．Methods of the development. | D．Reasons for the disaster. |
| A．They gave up the cotton fields for it. |
| B．They reduced its consumption for irrigation. |
| C．They replaced the earthen dam with a new one. |
| D．They stopped the Syr Dar'ya river water running into it. |
| A．Concerned | B．Positive. | C．Skeptical. | D．Cautious. |
| A．Bringing Back the Aral Sea |
| B．Building dams in the Aral Sea area |
| C．The disappearance of the Aral Sea |
| D．The development of the Aral Sea |
【推荐2】At the age of nine, Felix Finkbeiner set up an organization called “Plant for the Planet”, whose aim is to plant one million trees in each country of the world. It now exists in more than 130 countries and there is a Children Coordination Council made up of young people who organize plantings. It all started when Felix had to give a presentation at school about climate change. He looked for information on the Internet and was inspired by a woman who had planted 30 million trees in Africa. It gave him the idea that children could do something similar. The talk was so well received that it was suggested he talked to other schools. He started getting calls from students who wanted to join in. The first tree was planted and “Plant for the Planet” was started.
There was a lot to do, so Felix asked his parents if he could employ someone to help if he could find the money to pay them. He contacted (联系) Toyota, the large car manufacturer, asking for support. And they agreed to help.
Six months after the planting of the first tree, Felix gave a talk to business people. In the audience was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Toyota Germany, who wanted to hear what his money was being spent on. So impressed was he that he gave Felix a chance to talk to German Toyota car dealers (经销商). They were so interested in the idea that they donated €11,000 to the project. Suddenly it spread nationally.
Felix invited journalists to a press conference to announce that 50,000 trees had been planted in Germany. His parents warned him that very few journalists might come. But it turned out to be packed and his picture was on TV screens around the country.
When he is talking about other topics he sounds like any other young person. But once he gets started on climate issues, a change comes over him. He turns into a confident public speaker. But whatever he does in the rest of his life, he has already achieved more than most of us ever do.
1. Which of the following inspired Felix to organize “Plant for the Planet”?| A．A tree planter in Africa. |
| B．A Children Coordination Council. |
| C．The strong wish to give a report online. |
| D．The harmful effects of environmental pollution. |
| A．It assisted him in earning a lot of money. |
| B．It helped him meet the CEO of Toyota. |
| C．It benefited his project considerably. |
| D．It enabled him to plant the first tree. |
| A．It was successful. | B．It had to be put off. |
| C．It met with public opposition. | D．It worked well as his parents expected. |
| A．He has doubts about him. | B．He gives him high praise. |
| C．He is hopeful about his career. | D．He is concerned about his future. |
【推荐3】When we throw a plastic container away, we usually don’t think about what happens to it after it leaves our sight. It turns out that many plastics we use every day are not able to be recycled. Only some of them can be turned into something else. The rest ends up in landfills, or worse, the ocean.
A startup company, ByFusion, in Los Angeles, was in an effort to solve some of the environmental damage caused by discarded plastic.
“Plastic was not invented to be thrown away. Plastic is strong, flexible, and built to last. This is why plastic isn’t the problem. The problem is that we didn’t have a good plan for its future. So now it is thrown into landfills, burned at the edges of towns, and there are continents of it floating at sea killing precious wildlife,” They state on their website.
Their solution? Creating giant Lego-style building blocks using steam compression machines called Blockers. Raw, unwashed plastic waste is fed into the Blocker and made into ByBlocks, which can be used in place of traditional cement blocks and other building materials. ByBlocks require no glues and are 10 pounds lighter than cement blocks, making installation quicker and easier. They won’t break like concrete blocks would, and there’s no special labor needed to use them. They also create zero waste to make — one ton of plastic equals one ton of ByBlock.
ByFusion is currently able to process 450 tons of plastic a year out of their L. A. production facility, and there are 12 more Blockers arriving in US cities in the coming years. “ Our primary goal is to get a Blocker in every city, to enable every city to process their own recyclable waste, ” said founder Heidi Kujawa.
The company has set a goal to recycle 100 million tons of plastic waste by 2030, and their founder thinks the number is within reach. “If we get 9,000 Blocker systems installed around the world by 2025, together we can hit our 100-million-ton goal,” she said.
1. How does ByFusion recycle plastic waste?| A．By producing recyclable plastics. | B．By burning it for heating. |
| C．By making green building materials. | D．By building nature-friendly landfills. |
| A．It isn’t good for human beings. | B．The demand for it is increasing. |
| C．Too much plastic has been made. | D．Used plastic isn’t taken seriously. |
| A．It’s economical. | B．It needs glues. | C．It needs special labor. | D．It’s time consuming. |
| A．Its quality is improved. | B．Its ByBlocks are well-designed. |
| C．Its techniques develop fast. | D．Its equipment is used widely. |
【推荐1】As a new mother in 2016, Tash Gorst was scrolling (翻阅) through her phone when she fell down the rabbit hole of reading about plastic pollution. Fast-forward to 2019 and she had opened Gather, an organic zero-waste shop.
Customers come to Gather to refill their own containers with everything from rice to beauty products. And it’s not only the produce that is sustainable — the shop is powered by renewable energy and financed by a more sustainable bank, while all the units inside have been made from waste materials, mostly by Gorst herself.
Zero-waste shops have become an increasingly common feature on the streets in recent years. Where they have gone, supermarkets now look set to follow, with Morrisons, Marks & Spencer and Waitrose all recently agreeing to add refill stations in shops by the end of this year. Meanwhile, Asda has introduced refill aisles (过道) to more of its supermarkets following successful trials.
As small startup businesses aiming to make responsible decisions without cutting ethical (道德上的) corners, refill shops tend to be more expensive than supermarkets and chains. Gorst acknowledges that not everyone can afford to buy from them.
“But if you can, you should. You’ll feel good about the small decision that you’ve made in contributing to your local economy and doing something that’s better for the planet,” she says.
Emily, Drabble is a regular Gather customer. She buys everything that would “normally be encased in plastic”, from cleaning products to food like pasta, which she puts into glass containers. “When I get home, I love unpacking my shopping, throwing nothing in the bin,” Drabble says.
And customers at refill shops get more than just physical goods, notes Gorst. Besides employing four local people, Gather, for example, holds free events, including a monthly book club for reading about sustainability, workshops for kids and so on. “I also see it as a place to bring people together,” she says.
1. Why does the author mention Gorst’s random reading in paragraph 1?| A．To share a parenting experience. | B．To offer background information. |
| C．To attach importance to motivation. | D．To show advantages of digital reading. |
| A．It is run in an ecologically friendly way. | B．It sells sustainable goods at bargain prices. |
| C．It is only favored by customers with a green concept. | D．It differs from supermarkets in low-carbon awareness. |
| A．Amused. | B．Critical. | C．Objective. | D．Enthusiastic. |
| A．People may regard refill shops as fitness clubs. |
| B．Refill shops ought to share some social responsibilities. |
| C．People can benefit more from refill shops than expected. |
| D．Refill shops need to hold various events to promote sales. |
【推荐2】China is recognized as a world leader in the development of artificial intelligence and facial recognition systems. A Chinese company says it has created a new facial recognition system that can identify people even if they are wearing masks. Engineers at the Beijing-based company say their system is the first to be created to effectively identify people wearing face masks.
The company told a news agency that a team of 20 people built the system in about a month. The system is based on existing technologies developed over the past 10 years. The process involved adding a collection of about 6 million unmasked faces and a much smaller collection of masked faces, the company said.
The company is now selling two main kinds of products that use the new technology. One performs "single channel" recognition, which is designed to be used at the entrances to buildings.
The other product is a "multi-channel" recognition system that uses groups of surveillance cameras. It can identify individuals in a crowd of up to 30 people "within a second.
"When people are wearing a mask that covers the mouth and the nose, the recognition rate can reach about 95%, which can ensure that most people can be identified," said Huang, vice president of the company. He added that the system's success rate for people not wearing a mask is about 99.5%.
However, the new system struggles to identify people wearing both a mask and sunglasses. "In this situation, all of the key facial information is lost. In such cases recognition is tough," Huang said.
People were reacting differently to the new technology. While some citizens have been against using such tools, the majority have accepted the technology as an effective way to decrease crime and catch criminals.
1. What did the company do to build the system?| A．They gathered many face images. |
| B．They employed hundreds of people. |
| C．They used the latest technology. |
| D．They spent about a decade building it. |
| A．The new system has already been used by the police. |
| B．The recognition rate of masked faces is about 99.5%. |
| C．It's hard to recognize people with masks and sunglasses. |
| D．The single channel product is as powerful as the multi-channel. |
| A．One's eyes. | B．One's nose. |
| C．One's mouth. | D．One's hair. |
| A．To show conflicting attitudes toward the system. |
| B．To introduce a new facial recognition system. |
| C．To advertise two products of facial recognition. |
| D．To show the advantages of facial recognition. |
【推荐3】The San Diego County Water Authority has an unusual plan to use the city’s scenic San Vicente Reservoir (水库) to store solar power so it’s available after sunset. The project could help unlock America’s clean energy future.
Perhaps ten years from now, if all goes smoothly, large underground pipes will connect this lake to a new reservoir, a much smaller one, built in a nearby valley about 1100 feet higher. When the sun is high in the sky, California’s abundant solar power will pump water into that upper reservoir. It’s a way to store the electricity. When the sun goes down and solar power disappears, operators would open a valve (阀门) and the force of 8 million tons of water, falling back downhill through those same pipes, would drive machines capable of producing 500 megawatt s of electricity for up to eight hours. That’s enough to power 130, 000 typical homes.
“It’s a water battery!” says Neena Kuzmich, Deputy Director of Engineering for the water authority. She says energy storage facilities like these will be increasingly critical as California starts to rely more on energy from wind and solar, which produce electricity on their own schedules, without considering the demands of consumers. Californians learned this during a heat wave this past summer. “Everybody in the state of California got a text message at 5:30 in the evening to turn off their appliances,” Kuzmich says. The sun was going down, solar generation was disappearing, and the remaining power plants, many of them burning gas, couldn't keep up with demand. The reminder worked: people stopped using so much power, and the grid (电网) survived.
Yet earlier on that same day, there was so much solar power available that the grid couldn’t take it all. Grid operators turned away more than 2000 megawatt hours of electricity that solar generators could have delivered, enough to power a small city. That electricity was wasted. There was no way to store it for later, when operators desperately needed it.
1. What is the function of Paragraph 2?| A．To present the importance of a reservoir. | B．To introduce the usage of solar energy. |
| C．To recall a situation in recent ten years. | D．To explain a way to store electricity. |
| A．Negative. | B．Affordable. | C．Flexible. | D．Significant. |
| A．To remind people of lack of energy. | B．To warn people of danger. |
| C．To tell people the sunset time. | D．To persuade people into burning gas. |
| A．Scenic San Vicente Reservoir | B．Water Batteries to Store Solar Power |
| C．San Diego County Energy Crisis | D．Machines to Store Water in California |
