美国国家公共电台 NPR Chip-And-Ship Forest Clearing May Help Prevent Wildfire Disasters

 

RYAN HEINSIUS, BYLINE¹: Large-scale forest restoration designed to prevent wildfires in northern Arizona is behind schedule. One reason why - there are very few places for low-value branches and small diameter logs to go once they've been cut down but are still on the forest floor. It's known as the biomass bottleneck². From member station KNAU in Flagstaff, Ryan Heinsius reports.

HEINSIUS: A huge mechanical claw scoops³ up several ponderosa pine logs and feeds them into an industrial chipper. Thousands of wood chunks⁴ are blasted into a large shipping⁵ container.

(SOUNDBITE OF WOOD CHIPPER RUNNING)

HEINSIUS: Overseeing what's fondly known as the chip-and-ship project is Jeff Halbrook with Northern Arizona University's Ecological⁶ Restoration Institute.

JEFF HALBROOK: It goes anywhere from one to four to three...

HEINSIUS: Yeah.

HALBROOK: Up to seven small ones can just kind of - and throw in that little jaws⁷ there.

HEINSIUS: These trees being fed into the chipper were recently cut from the nearby Coconino National Forest. A crew has been working to pack the shipping containers as tightly as possible, stuffing each with about 40,000 pounds of chipped wood. In about two weeks, nearly 60 containers will arrive at a port in South Korea.

HAN-SUP HAN: They primarily use these wood chips for collection of energy, moving away from the fossil-based energy operation in South Korea.

HEINSIUS: Han-Sup Han teaches forestry⁸ at Northern Arizona University. He is hopeful the chip-and-ship project could support global efforts to move toward carbon neutrality and, at the same time, bypass the main roadblock to large-scale forest restoration in the region.

HAN: This material is so small. And it has so low value. As far as hauling this material to the market - has been - economically, it's unfeasible. To be able to complete the restoration of operation, you need to move that out of the forest.

HEINSIUS: This debris⁹ is called biomass. And burning it, at least small chunks like this, releases less carbon than traditional coal. The U.S. Forest Service wants to eventually thin a million acres of ponderosa pines vulnerable to wildfire in Arizona. But the agency can't get there without first clearing all that debris. Rich Van Demark is a forester with the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management.

RICH VAN DEMARK: When you fan an acre, you can't go and do another acre until you finish that load of slash¹⁰ or small-diameter material. The bottleneck is essentially¹¹ not having homes for that lower-value, lower-quality wood.

HEINSIUS: Experts say a lack of domestic markets is mostly to blame for the delays. Biomass-produced energy is expensive. And there just aren't many facilities in the U.S. Plus, the material can be sold in Asia for more than double of what it fetches domestically. That's why forest managers looked overseas for a solution.

VAN DEMARK: As these markets develop and these techniques are refined, we're able to do more acres. And we're way behind the eight ball on our ability to manage acres.

HEINSIUS: Chip-and-ship could eventually export half a million tons of biomass each year. Jeff Halbrook, who's showing me the project, and others are even hopeful it could help restart the long-dormant wood-products industry in northern Arizona.

HALBROOK: We would need to get more workers in the forest, more truck drivers to haul the material here. So our workforce¹² would need to increase before we could really ramp¹³ up.

HEINSIUS: Project supervisors¹⁴ acknowledge transporting that much material nearly 6,000 miles across the Pacific would come with a substantial carbon footprint. To offset¹⁵ that, they'd use hundreds of shipping containers that already return empty to Asia from the U.S. If all the pieces fall into place, chip-and-ship could be key for South Korea to move away from fossil fuels while helping¹⁶ make U.S. forests more resilient to wildfire. For NPR News, I'm Ryan Heinsius in Flagstaff.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 bottleneck   

n.瓶颈口，交通易阻的狭口；妨生产流程的一环

参考例句：

• The transportation bottleneck has blocked the movement of the cargo.运输的困难阻塞了货物的流通。
• China's strained railroads already become a bottleneck for the economy.中国紧张的铁路运输已经成为经济增长的瓶颈。

3 scoops   

n.小铲( scoop的名词复数 )；小勺；一勺[铲]之量；（抢先刊载、播出的）独家新闻v.抢先报道( scoop的第三人称单数 )；（敏捷地）抱起；抢先获得；用铲[勺]等挖（洞等）

参考例句：

• two scoops of mashed potato 两勺土豆泥
• I used three scoops of flour and one(scoop)of sugar. 我用了三杓面粉和一杓糖。 来自辞典例句

4 chunks   

厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分

参考例句：

• a tin of pineapple chunks 一罐菠萝块
• Those chunks of meat are rather large—could you chop them up a bIt'smaller? 这些肉块相当大，还能再切小一点吗？

5 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

6 ecological   

adj.生态的，生态学的

参考例句：

• The region has been declared an ecological disaster zone.这个地区已经宣布为生态灾难区。
• Each animal has its ecological niche.每种动物都有自己的生态位.

7 jaws   

n.口部；嘴

参考例句：

• The antelope could not escape the crocodile's gaping jaws. 那只羚羊无法从鱷鱼张开的大口中逃脱。
• The scored jaws of a vise help it bite the work. 台钳上有刻痕的虎钳牙帮助它紧咬住工件。

8 forestry   

n.森林学；林业

参考例句：

• At present, the Chinese forestry is being at a significant transforming period. 当前, 我国的林业正处于一个重大的转折时期。
• Anhua is one of the key forestry counties in Hunan province. 安化县是湖南省重点林区县之一。

9 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

10 slash   

vi.大幅度削减；vt.猛砍，尖锐抨击，大幅减少；n.猛砍，斜线，长切口，衣衩

参考例句：

• The shop plans to slash fur prices after Spring Festival.该店计划在春节之后把皮货降价。
• Don't slash your horse in that cruel way.不要那样残忍地鞭打你的马。

11 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

12 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

13 ramp   

n.暴怒，斜坡，坡道；vi.作恐吓姿势，暴怒，加速；vt.加速

参考例句：

• That driver drove the car up the ramp.那司机将车开上了斜坡。
• The factory don't have that capacity to ramp up.这家工厂没有能力加速生产。

14 supervisors   

n.监督者，管理者( supervisor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• I think the best technical people make the best supervisors. 我认为最好的技术人员可以成为最好的管理人员。 来自辞典例句
• Even the foremen or first-level supervisors have a staffing responsibility. 甚至领班或第一线的监督人员也有任用的责任。 来自辞典例句

15 offset   

n.分支，补偿；v.抵消，补偿

参考例句：

• Their wage increases would be offset by higher prices.他们增加的工资会被物价上涨所抵消。
• He put up his prices to offset the increased cost of materials.他提高了售价以补偿材料成本的增加。

16 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。