Britain Accelerates toward Cleaner Future—with Wheat
依托小麦—英国加速迈向绿色未来
1. Wheat never used to get Charlie Goldsack excited. He's got fields of the stuff down on his farm, but as a cash crop there was one big problem: it didn't generate much cash. Rock bottom prices saw to that.
1、小麦从未让查利·戈德萨克兴奋过。虽然他的农场大片大片地种着这东西，但作为一种商品作物，它的一大缺陷就是创收有限。最低价在那儿决定着呢。
2. But now, the farmer hopes his wheat might literally become the driving force of his 1,400-acre Friar Maine farm in southern England.
2、但现在，这位农场主希望小麦能够给他在南英格兰的1400英亩的费赖尔缅因农场带来活力。
3. Instead of heading to the bakery, Goldsack's harvest will now go to a nearby plant for conversion into bioethanol—part of accelerating British efforts to introduce cleaner car fuel.
3、今后，戈德萨克所收获的小麦将不再送往面包房，而是供应给附近一家工厂生产生物酒精——这是英国加速引进清洁汽车燃料行动的一部分。
4. "For a lot of farms, it was barely economic to grow wheat any more," he says. "This is just what we need—a new market. Hopefully it can soak up all the surplus and raise prices."
4、“对许多农场来说，再种小麦几乎已经无利可图了，”他说，“这正是我们所需要的——一个新市场。但愿它能消化掉所有过剩的小麦，从而抬高小麦的价格。”
5. The simple arithmetic looks compelling. Goldsack's roughly 250 acres could yield enough wheat to produce a million miles' of car fuel.
5、这个简单的算法看上去挺有说服力：戈德萨克的大约250英亩小麦，就足以生产供一辆汽车行驶100万英里的燃油。
6. Extrapolate that across all of Britain's farmland and you get enough bioethanol to account for 5 percent of all fuel used annually by British motorists—a target the government wants hit by 2010. In a pleasing symmetry, the amount of wheat required would be around 3 million tons, roughly equal to the excess produced each year that is unwanted by the domestic market.
6、以此推算，整个英国的农场足够供应每年全国5%的机动车燃料消耗量。英国政府希望到2010年达到这一目标。随之而来的好处是，为此所需的小麦数量将在300万吨左右，大致相当于国内市场每年的剩余量。
7. "If this soaks up that surplus then it could add eight or nine pounds to the price of wheat," enthuses Goldsack, estimating that this would be worth about J 10,000 （$17,445） a year to his investment-starved farm.
7、“如果该计划能够消化掉所有剩余小麦，小麦的价格就会（每吨）上涨8、9英镑，”戈德萨克兴奋地说，并且预计这会给他急需投资的农场带来每年1万英镑（1.7440万美元）的收益。
8. While President Bush last week emphasized the need for cleaner cars for reasons of energy security, Britain's motivations are slightly different. As a signatory to the Kyoto pact on climate change, Britain must reduce carbon emissions by 20 percent by 2010. With motoring accounting for almost one-third of emissions, and greener fuels like bioethanol estimated to reduce greenhouse gas output by around two-thirds, the logic appears indisputable.
8、布什总统上周强调推广清洁能源汽车的必要性，理由是出于能源安全上的考虑，而英国的动机则略有不同。作为有关气候变化的京都议定书的签署国，到2010年英国必须将碳排放量减少20%.由于汽车的排放量占总排放量的近1／3，而像生物酒精这样的绿色燃料预计可使温室气体的排放量减少约2／3，因而推广清洁燃料的合理性无可争议。
Will oil companies stand in the way?
石油公司会出来阻挠吗?
9. But there is a snag. Experts warn that biofuels are very expensive to produce—roughly twice as costly as gasoline—and can only become viable with generous government subsidies.
9、不过存在一个障碍。专家警告说，生物燃料的生产成本非常高—大约是汽油的两倍，除非政府提供慷慨的补贴，否则缺乏可行性。
10. They also note that it will be difficult to create a network of "gas" stations selling bioethanol, since many of Britain's current gas stations are owned by petrochemical giants that have little interest in supplying a product that challenges their own hegemony. Britain's biggest energy producer, BP, says it is "looking at" introducing bioethanol, but none of its 1,300 gas stations throughout the United Kingdom sell the product yet.
10、他们还提醒说，建立销售生物酒精的加“油”站网络也非易事，因为英国现有的加油站多为石化巨头所有，供应这种燃料将会挑战它们自身的霸权，因而它们对此没有什么兴趣。英国最大的能源生产商BP表示，它们将会“考虑”引进生物酒精，但其旗下的1300个在英国境内的加油站尚无一开始出售这一产品。
11. "One man and his chip pan （deep-fat fryer used to make French fries） may be able to turn fat （from cereal grains） into petrol, but he's a long way from being able to take on BP," says Nick Matthews, principal fellow at the Warwick Manufacturing Group, a research body in central England.
11、“一个人加上一口煎锅（用宋炸薯条的深底油锅）也许能够把（谷类作物的）脂肪转化成汽油，但要撼动BP则远非易事，”英格兰中部一家研究机构华威制造工程学院的负责人尼克·马修斯表示。
12. "I can make black pop and sell it in bottles," he continues, "but can I take on Coca-Cola? They have such massive branding and distribution that no one's going to buy my stuff."
12、“我能生产黑色汽水并装瓶出售，”他接着说，“但我能撼动可口可乐吗?他们有雄厚的品牌和庞大的营销系统，没有人会买我的东西。”
13. "Oil companies want to get the benefit of vertical integration in their system; therefore, unless there is the regulatory and fiscal framework to stimulate it, it won't happen of its own accord;" Mr. Matthews adds. Still, some bioethanol is already creeping into usage here, not as a separate fuel with a pump of its own, but as a blend that is mixed with petrol in a ratio of about 1 in 20, for use in ordinary cars. Any richer mix than that and cars must undergo a relatively inexpensive adaptation to replace rubber and aluminum parts, which would be eroded by bioethanol.
13、“石油公司希望将其纳入自身的产品链以获取好处，因此，除非有法规和财政手段作为激励，否则这一切不会自然而然地发生，”马修斯先生补充道。不管怎样，已经有一些生物酒精渐渐进入消费领域。不过不是单独出售，而是以1：19的比例与汽油混合供普通汽车使用。超过这一比例，汽车必须稍事改装，换掉容易受生物酒精腐蚀的橡胶和铝制部件。
14. Ford and Saab have produced "flex fuel" cars that can run on either boiethanol or normal petrol, or any combination of the two. A pilot project in southwest England is introducing cars running on E85 （a fuel made of 85 percent bioethanol） within the local police force. Gas stations at supermarkets in the region are preparing to install E85 pumps to supply the new fleet. The US, generally acknowledged to be a step ahead of Britain on biofuel, has an estimated 600 stations that offer E85.
14、福特和萨博公司已生产出了既可使用普通汽油、又可使用生物酒精或两者混合物的“弹性燃料”汽车。在英格兰西南部的一个试验项目为当地警察配备了使用E85（含有85%生物酒精）燃料的汽车。当地超市的加油站正准备安装E85加油机以供应这批新车所需。在生物燃料方面公认为比英国领先一步的美国，已有大约600个加油站提供E85燃料。
A push from government
政府的推动
15. A recent government ruling could force oil companies to equip their gas stations similarly. Just as it did with electricity generation, the government has said it will order energy groups such as BP to ensure that a certain proportion of their products are made from renewable resources. It has yet to give an exact figure, but industry insiders predict it will be around 3 percent.
15、政府新近做出的规定将迫使石油公司的加油站具备类似的能力。与过去对待发电问题一样，政府表示将命令诸如BP这样的能源集团确保它们一定比例的产品来自可再生资源。虽然具体的数字尚未确定，但业内人士预测其将会在3%左右。
16. The Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation will come into operation in 2008. For Malcolm Shepherd, managing director of a company created last year to make bioethanol from farm produce, this could make all the difference.
16、《可再生交通燃料法》将于2008年生效。对于马尔科姆·谢泼德先生来说，一切将因此而改变。谢泼德先生是去年成立的一家利用农产品生产生物酒精的公司的总经理。
17. "If they （oil companies） fail to fulfill the quota, they will have to pay penalties," he notes. "The obligation will open up forecourts （gas stations） to the biofuel industry."
17、“如果它们（石油公司）未能达到这一限额，就得支付罚款，”他说，“这一法律将为生物燃油工业打开前场（加油站）。”
18. Mr. Shepherd's company, Green Spirit, is building one of Britain's first major bioethanol factories—where crops are turned into fuel—in southern England. It estimates that as many as 10 others will be required nationwide to satisfy British demand alone.
18、谢泼德先生的公司Green Spitit正在英格兰南部建造的工厂，是英国首批大型生物酒精工厂之一，谷物在这里被转化为燃料。预计，单是为满足英国本国的需求，就需要再建设10个类似的工厂。
Enough land to "feed the machine"?
有足够的土地“喂饱”那些机器吗?
19. Matthews notes that the US and Brazil are world leaders in biofuel usage because of the formidable acreage at their disposal. "Here it's completely uneconomic," he says. "Oil prices would have to be astronomically high to make it worthwhile."
19、马修斯指出，美国和巴西之所以在生物燃料的利用方面领先世界，主要是因为它们拥有可任其支配的辽阔耕地。“在英国，这一点毫无经济意义可言，”他说，“除非油价涨得离谱，才会使生物燃料变得有意义。”
20. Professor Stephen Glaister, a transport expert at Imperial College London, takes an even broader view. "It's all about the arithmetic," he says. "Energy comes from the sun. It's just a question of whether there's enough sunlight and enough land to capture it to produce sufficient volumes of energy."
20、伦敦帝国学院的交通问题专家斯帝芬·格莱斯特教授把眼光放得更远。他说：“归根结底，这是一个算法问题，能源来自太阳。问题只在于是否有足够的阳光，以及是否有足够的土地宋捕捉这些阳光，然后生产出足量的能源来。”
