D GOAL 4 DISCUSS THE FUTURE

Future Energy

Cost to produce 1 kilowatt

hour in 2013 (US cents)

25

where will we
get our energy?

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Reading
A. Discuss these questions with a partner.
Read the article to check your answers.
1. What are fossil fuels?
2. What is alternative energy?

Its a bright sunny day. I put the last solar panel on my roof,
I switch it on, and I have electricity. Im free! Now, I wont have
to worry about electric bills or oil prices, and I wont feel guilty
about pollution. But whats this? A cloud passes in front of the
sun and my lights go out! Im going to have to start my generator
and burn some more gasoline. This isnt going to be easy after all.
We are going to have a big energy problem in the future.
Today, the world uses 320 billion kilowatt-hours of energy a day.
Thats equal to about 22 light bulbs burning nonstop for every
person on the planet. By 2100 we will use three times as much
energy. How will we get the energy? At the moment, we get most
of our energy from fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. But fossil
fuels are dirty and they will not last forever. In the long term, we
will have to find alternatives. We will need renewable energy.

C. Answer the questions.

94 The Future

6668 SE1_U8pp086-097.indd 94-95

One problem with solar power is that it is expensive, but

the cost of solar will fall as technology improves. Thirty years
ago it was cost-effective on satellites, says Daniel Shugar,
president of PowerLight Corporation. Today it can be costeffective for powering houses and businesses. He tells us that
in the future most houses will have solar panels.
There are other problems with solar power. It needs a lot
of space and, of course, it doesnt work at night.

alternative = something
different I dont like this idea. Is
there an alternative?
renewable = something you
can use again and again
cost-effective = something
that is cost-effective saves a
lot of money
ugly = not beautiful

Writing
A. Work with a partner. Write statements
about the future using the information
in the box. Make your statements
positive or negative.
people/live under
the sea
people/enough food
to eat
scientists/find a cure
for AIDS

researchers/find
alternative fuels
people/travel
to Mars
wars/end

WIND POWER

B. Underline the sentences in the article that

contain will. Rewrite them using be going to.

1. Why did the author put solar panels on

his roof? ________________________
2. In 2100, the worlds energy will be equal
to how many light bulbs per person?
________________________________
3. What are three problems with solar
power?__________________________
________________________________
4. What are two problems with wind
energy?_ ________________________
5. Does Michael Pacheco think there will
be enough energy in the future?
________________________________

Word Focus

SOLAR POWER
On a cloudy day near the city of Leipzig in the former East
Germany, I walked across a field with 33,500 solar panels. It
produces enough energy for 1800 homes.

One afternoon I stood in a field in Denmark under a

dark, cloudy sky. My solar panels produce very little energy
in this weather. But above me a wind turbine was producing
clean, renewable electricity. At the moment, wind power is
the best of all the alternative energy sources. But again, there
are problems. First, they are ugly; people dont like to see
wind turbines in fields. And of course the wind doesnt blow
all the time.
So, will our grandchildren get their energy from the sun,
wind, or some other source? Were going to need everything
we can get from solar, everything we can get from wind, says
Michael Pacheco, director of the National Bioenergy Center,
part of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
in Golden, Colorado. And still the question iscan we get
enough?

B. Use your ideas from exercise A to write a

paragraph about the future.

In the next twenty-five years . . .

Goal 4 Discuss the

future

Join two or three other students and

discuss your ideas about the future.

Lesson D 95

3/19/09 3:48:33 PM