Section I

POWER ENGINEERING

Unit 1. The Role of Electricity and Its Future Applications ... 11

THE ROLE OF ELECTRICITY

AND ITS FUTURE APPLICATIONS

IN OUR SOCIETY

PARTI

• Read the text below attentively and translate it.

At a time when communication technologies are becoming ever more essential for pooling knowledge and making fast decisions, one third of the earth's inhabitants — nearly 2 billion people — still have no ac­cess to a modern energy source! The implications of energy over the coming twenty years are wide and varied and will include issues as crucial as economic development and political stability in numerous countries, safeguarding our local and global environment, controlling global warming, social equity, achieving a balance between rural and urban development policies and so on... In a nutshell, sustainable hu­man development!

Whether we are in charge of policy or the economy, it is our joint responsibility to place the issue of access to clean and cost-effective electricity for all at the centre of the much-needed debate to deter­mine not only what type of progress, democracy and humanism, but also what type of development, our generation will bequeath to the generations yet to come. We should consider the conditions for access to electricity, not in terms of sustainable economic, social and political development for all the inhabitants of this planet.

Wide disparities in access to affordable commercial energy threat to social stability and counter to the concept of human development. Air pollution and emissions of gases threaten our health, degrade our en­vironment and alter the global climate system... The current consump­tion of primary energy increases at a rate of 2% every year, but this growth is very unequal around the world:

— Europe 0,2% year

— USA-Canada 1,7% year

— Developing countries 4,5% year

If the global growth rate continues, it will mean a doubling of ener­gy consumption by 2035 relative to 1998, and a tripling by 2055. Ener­gy consumption is bound to increase.

Physical resources and technical opportunities are available to meet the challenge of sustainable development, but it requires policy chang­es, such as:

— more effective use of energy (buildings, electric appliances, ve­hicles, production processes)

— increased reliance on renewable energy sources

— accelerate development and deployment of new energy techno­logies

- as well as taking into account the costs of the various solutions.

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