必修第三册 Unit 8 Green Living-【创新教程】2024高考英语总复习大一轮课时作业word（新教材，北师大版）

UNIT 8　 GREEN LIVING　[对应学生课时P242] Ⅰ.阅读理解 (2023·南京二模)Which is better for Earth: an electric or gas­powered vehicle? The answer to this question might seem blindingly obvious: Of course electric cars must be better for the environment, because they don't give off greenhouse gases as people drive.However, electric vehicles (EVs) aren't perfect, and they come with their own set of polluting problems.Their batteries require a large amount of energy to produce. Battery production is just one part of an electric car's life span.A study looked at the entire life cycle of an EV's emissions (排放), from mining the metals for the batteries to producing the electricity needed to power them, and then compared this with the average emissions of a gas­powered vehicle.The team found that when EVs are charged with coal­powered electricity, they're actually worse for the environment than gas­powered cars. “Only when connected to the dirtiest, coal­heavy electric grids (电网) do gas­powered cars become comparable to EVs on a greenhouse gas basis，” said Colin Sheppard, an expert in energy and transportation systems.That's why more and more countries are decreasing the power supply from coal.In China, the national grid is improving with more investments in renewable energy.For example, it has twice as much wind energy capacity as the U．S.and it builds more solar panels per year than any other countries. Sheppard modelled a future in which all cars were electric.“We wanted to understand what it might be like if all passenger vehicles are electrified.” For example, Sheppard calculated that if all vehicles in the U．S.were electric, it would reduce greenhouse­gas emissions by 46% every year.This reduction could be increased even further if those vehicles were using a technique known as “smart charging” in which cars are recharged at chosen times (often at night) to reduce the cost of electricity. In short, it's far easier to argue in favor of buying an EV than a gas­powered vehicle.But what a