Alternative energy sources

替代能源

How to wring power from the night air

如何從夜晚的空氣中汲取能量

Mimic the way that lightning happens

模仿閃電產(chǎn)生的方式

Aug 3rd 2019 | MONTREAL

SOLAR POWER is all very well, but it is available only during daylight hours. If something similarly environmentally friendly could be drawn on during the hours of darkness, that would be a great convenience. Colin Price, an atmospheric scientist at Tel Aviv University, in Israel, wonders if he might have stumbled across such a thing. As he told a meeting of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, held in Montreal in July, it may be possible to extract electricity directly from damp air—specifically, from air of the sort of dampness (above 60% relative humidity) found after sundown, as the atmosphere cools and its ability to hold water vapour diminishes.

太陽(yáng)能已經(jīng)很棒了，但是只能在白天使用。如果同樣環(huán)保的東西也能在黑暗中使用，這將會(huì)帶來(lái)極大的便捷。以色列特拉維夫大學(xué)的大氣科學(xué)家科林·普萊斯(Colin Price)想知道他能否有機(jī)遇碰到這種物質(zhì)。正如他在/國(guó)際大地測(cè)量學(xué)和地球物理學(xué)聯(lián)合會(huì)/的于7月在蒙特利爾舉行的會(huì)議上所聲明的那樣,人們也許可以直接從潮濕的空氣中提取電力——尤其是在空氣的濕度(相對(duì)濕度60%以上)的情況下，而這情況被發(fā)現(xiàn)在日落之后,此時(shí)大氣開(kāi)始降溫，同時(shí)自身蓄存水蒸氣的能力開(kāi)始下降。

詞匯

Vapour/蒸氣；潮氣；霧氣

Dr Price’s apparatus is a pair of concentric metal cylinders. The outer cylinder is earthed while the inner one is not, creating a capacitor. Passing suitably moist air through the inner cylinder causes that cylinder to accumulate electric charge, thus creating a potential difference between the cylinders which could be harnessed to drive a current through an external circuit.

普萊斯博士的儀器是一對(duì)同心的金屬圓筒。外筒接地而內(nèi)筒不接地，形成電容器。將適當(dāng)?shù)某睗窨諝馔ㄟ^(guò)內(nèi)筒，使筒體積聚電荷，從而在筒體之間產(chǎn)生電位差，可以利用電位差驅(qū)動(dòng)電流通過(guò)外部電路。

詞匯

Apparatus/裝置，設(shè)備；儀器；器官

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In effect, and at an extremely small scale (so far, a maximum of just under a volt), Dr Price thinks he has tamed lightning—which is surprising, in a way, because no one truly knows how lightning works. As Dr Price himself observes, “Thunderstorms produce electricity...But if they didn’t know it, theoreticians would never predict lightning to exist on Earth. They might predict clouds forming, but not a 10km-high spark, building in half an hour out of nothing.”

實(shí)際上，在一個(gè)非常小的規(guī)模內(nèi)(到目前為止，最大電壓僅略低于1伏)，普萊斯博士認(rèn)為他已經(jīng)馴服了閃電——這在某種程度上是令人驚訝的，因?yàn)闆](méi)有人真正知道閃電是如何工作的。正如普萊斯博士自己所觀察到的，“雷暴產(chǎn)生電力……但如果他們對(duì)機(jī)理不了解，理論家就永遠(yuǎn)無(wú)法預(yù)測(cè)地球上的閃電。他們可能預(yù)測(cè)云的形成，但難以對(duì)10千米高，在半小時(shí)內(nèi)從無(wú)到有地形成的火花進(jìn)行預(yù)測(cè)，?！?/p>

詞匯

Theoretician/理論家，精通于理論的人

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One thing that is known about lightning, however, is that it requires water to be present in all three states of matter: solid, liquid and vapour. Dr Price suspects that in his experiment the surface of the inner cylinder is taking on the role played in a thunderhead by water’s solid phase, ice. His comparison of different metals’ effectiveness in that role—zinc is best, copper is useless—may help elucidate the details of the process, not only in his putative generator, but also in a natural thunderstorm.

然而，關(guān)于閃電，我們知道的一件事是，它需要水存在于物質(zhì)的所有三種狀態(tài):固態(tài)、液態(tài)和氣態(tài)。普萊斯博士懷疑，在他的實(shí)驗(yàn)中，內(nèi)圓筒的表面正扮演著由水的固態(tài)——冰，在雷雨云中所扮演的角色。他比較了不同金屬在這方面的效果——鋅是最好的，銅是無(wú)效的——這可能有助于闡明這個(gè)過(guò)程的細(xì)節(jié)，不僅在他假定的發(fā)電機(jī)中，而且在自然雷暴中也是如此。

詞匯

Elucidate/闡明；說(shuō)明

Putative/推定的，假定的

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His hypothesis is that things start when water droplets condense out of the humid air and onto the metal surface. Though water consists mostly of molecules of hydrogen and oxygen (H2O), at any given time a few of those molecules will have broken up spontaneously into positively charged hydrogen ions (H+) and negatively charged hydroxyl ions (OH-). These two types of ion will then move through a droplet at different rates, depending on the nature of the surface to which the droplet is attached, separating the positive and negative charges within that droplet. This charge separation will, in turn, induce a charge on the surface of the cylinder, and thus a potential difference in the capacitor.

他的假設(shè)是，當(dāng)水滴從潮濕的空氣中凝結(jié)到金屬表面時(shí)，反應(yīng)就開(kāi)始了。雖然水主要由氫和氧(H2O)分子組成，但在任何時(shí)候，其中的一些分子都會(huì)自發(fā)地分裂成帶正電荷的氫離子(H+)和帶負(fù)電荷的羥基離子(OH-)。這兩種離子會(huì)以不同的速度穿過(guò)液滴，這取決于液滴附著的表面的性質(zhì)【nature在這有性質(zhì)的意思，“極性”這個(gè)詞有專門的表達(dá)（polarity?）】，將液滴中的正電荷和負(fù)電荷分開(kāi)。這種電荷分離反過(guò)來(lái)會(huì)在圓柱體表面產(chǎn)生電荷，從而在電容器中產(chǎn)生電位差。

詞匯

Droplet/小滴，液滴

Condense/濃縮；凝結(jié)

Spontaneously/自發(fā)地；自然地；不由自主地

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Having established the principle, the question Dr Price now faces is whether he can scale things up to a useful degree. This will involve tinkering with cylinders made from various combinations of metals and metal alloys, and also playing with the configurations of the cylinders with respect to one another. That there actually is, out there, a combination of substance and geometry which will yield useful amounts of electricity is, perhaps, a long shot. But, given the power of lightning itself, it certainly seems worth looking into.

在確立了這一原理之后，普萊斯博士現(xiàn)在面臨的問(wèn)題是，他能否把反應(yīng)擴(kuò)大到有用的規(guī)模。這將涉及到熔補(bǔ)由各種金屬和金屬合金組合而成的圓柱體，還涉及到對(duì)圓柱體相互之間的結(jié)構(gòu)進(jìn)行調(diào)整。事實(shí)上，物質(zhì)和幾何層面的結(jié)合將產(chǎn)生大量有用的電能；也許，是一個(gè)不太可能實(shí)現(xiàn)的目標(biāo)。但是，考慮到閃電本身的力量，它確實(shí)值得一探究竟。

詞匯

Tinkering/鑄補(bǔ)，熔補(bǔ)

Configuration/配置；結(jié)構(gòu)；外形

Geometry/幾何學(xué)

a long shot/不大會(huì)成功的嘗試

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