1.disrupt
v. make a break in
To disrupt is to interrupt or throw something into disorder. If you don't turn your phone off before a play, it might ring and disrupt the actors and the audience.
2.manure
n. any animal or plant material used to fertilize land especially animal excreta usually with litter material
Gardeners use the word manure to mean a fertilizer made from animal waste. Manure is good for helping plants grow and stay healthy.
3.handsomely
adv. in an attractively handsome manner
To do something handsomely is to do it in a way that looks attractive or pleasing. If you arrange a bouquet of flowers handsomely, they'll look great even if they're in a pickle jar instead of a fancy vase.
4.subsidy
n. a grant paid by a government to an enterprise that benefits the public
A subsidy is a grant of financial assistance. Many school districts, for example, offer a subsidy to low-income families for book fees and lunch costs. The family pays a set amount and the district makes up the difference.
5.anathema
n. a formal ecclesiastical curse accompanied by excommunication
Something that one absolutely and positively cannot stand is anathema. Garlic is anathema to vampires (ditto for stakes and daylight). So is kryptonite to Superman or a silver bullet to a werewolf.
6.incumbent
adj. necessary (for someone) as a duty or responsibility; morally binding
An incumbent is an official who holds an office. If you want to run for congress, you're going to have to beat the incumbent.
7.decarbonise
v. remove carbon from (an engine)
8.disruptive
adj. characterized by unrest or disorder or insubordination
Anything disruptive is loud, chaotic, and disorderly. Disruptive things disturb people and upset the applecart.
9.perennial
adj. lasting an indefinitely long time; suggesting self-renewal
Perennial typically describes things that are permanent, constant, or repeated. If you fight with your parents every year over whether they really must invite your annoying cousins for Thanksgiving, you could call that a perennial conflict.
10.rebate
n. a refund of some fraction of the amount paid
A rebate is a partial refund of the cost of an item. It acts as an incentive to help sell the product. If your new cell phone came with a rebate, you'll get a check in the mail for a certain amount of the cost.
11.starkly
adv. in a stark manner
12.slump
v. fall or sink heavily
To slump is to fall or slouch down. It's also a downturn in performance — a struggling ballplayer and a sinking economy are both in a slump.
13.deregulate
v. lift the regulations on
Deregulate is a verb that means to take away the rules. When someone deregulates a soccer game, the game could become a muddy wrestling match without any rules to keep things on track.
14.intermittent
adj. stopping and starting at irregular intervals
Reach for the adjective intermittent to describe periodic movement and stopping and starting over a period of time.
15.doldrums
n. a belt of calms and light winds between the northern and southern trade winds of the Atlantic and Pacific
Doldrums aren’t drums that you can play like the tom-toms. Rather people use this noun to describe a period of time that is boring, depressing, or characterized by inactivity.
16.diesel
n. an internal-combustion engine that burns heavy oil
A diesel is a type of engine that produces enough heat to burn fuel and power a vehicle. Most diesels run on very thick, heavy oil.
17.dull
adj. lacking in liveliness or animation
To dull something means to take away its edge, its energy, or its excitement. "Watching that movie will dull your senses, until you fall asleep."
18.grid
n. a pattern of regularly spaced horizontal and vertical line
A grid is a network of intersecting parallel lines, whether real or imaginary. Most American streets are laid out in a grid pattern, meaning the streets intersect at right angles and form a pattern of squares when viewed from above.
19.penetration
n. the act of entering into or through something
Penetration refers to entering or making your way through something. It's also a deep insight.
20.portfolio
n. a list of the financial assets held by an individual or a bank or other financial institution
A portfolio is a large, flat briefcase used to hold papers and other loose materials, like maps or artwork. A portfolio is usually used to transport important documents, like examples of your graphic design work if you’re an artist.
While the incremental operating cost of wind and solar plants (and the related staffing levels for a given plant size) are much lower than conventional thermal plants because of no fuel cost, they are far from zero or "free". This is a misconception that ignores the need for staffing and maintenance services. Over the 20 year design life of a typical wind plant, for example, operating costs are expected to roughly equal the initial investment in total.
Additionally, the subsidies most used in the US for wind and solar development are the Production and Investment Tax Credits (PTC and ITC). Tax credits for new projects will be phased out completely in the next approximately 5-7 years (the phase out plan is of fixed duration, but the tax accounting rules allow projects to claim credits ahead of project completion as long as certain conditions are met, such as start of construction of outlay of sufficient capital to show commitment to project completion). The US renewable industry does not have a general expectation of tax subsidy renewal, and developers, utilities, and suppliers are all looking to be able to build economic projects without tax incentives. The reality is that costs have come down and performance has increased to the point where these renewable resources are largely able to compete with conventional generation on price already.
Also, the need for transmission line development is apparent, but it's mostly about bringing transmission to the resources rather than needing to rebuild existing lines. That means large scale transmission projects to connect low population areas with high wind and solar resource to population centers. Existing lines and substations do often need upgrades to accommodate new generation, but those are determined based on study and the costs are often (though not always) borne by the project or group of projects requiring the upgrades.
As others have highlighted, large scale energy storage technology is going to be key to reducing the need for peaking power plants to cover load gaps related to these intermittent resources.
可再生能源面临的问题如何解决？
Green power is intermittent. The vagaries of wind and sun—especially in countries without favourable weather—mean that turbines and solar panels generate electricity only part of the time. To keep power flowing, the system relies on conventional power plants, such as coal, gas or nuclear, to kick in when renewables falter. But because they are idle for long periods, they find it harder to attract private investors. So, to keep the lights on, they require public funds.
Everyone is affected by a third factor: renewable energy has negligible or zero marginal running costs—because the wind and the sun are free. In a market that prefers energy produced at the lowest short-term cost, wind and solar take business from providers that are more expensive to run, such as coal plants, depressing power prices, and hence revenues for all.
The higher the penetration of renewables, the worse these problems get—especially in saturated markets.Places with an abundance of wind, such as China, are curtailing wind farms to keep coal plants in business.
The bigger task is to redesign power markets to reflect the new need for flexible supply and demand. They should adjust prices more frequently, to reflect the fluctuations of the weather. At times of extreme scarcity, a high fixed price could kick in to prevent blackouts. Markets should reward those willing to use less electricity to balance the grid, just as they reward those who generate more of it. Bills could be structured to be higher or lower depending how strongly a customer wanted guaranteed power all the time—a bit like an insurance policy. In short, policymakers should be clear they have a problem and that the cause is not renewable energy, but the out-of-date system of electricity pricing. Then they should fix it.
