VOA标准英语2010年-It's Not Hard to Catch a Breeze

The Dutch did not invent windmills, but they put them to good use, powering industrial machinery¹ and, especially, draining low-lying fields.

Have you ever seen a sunflower twist itself to face into the sun so that it can soak up light energy all day long? Farm windmills used the same principle, rotating into the wind.

Unlike history's first windmills in Persia centuries ago, they did not drive mills to crush grain. They were the visible part of a pumping system, drawing up water for families and livestock² from deep underground.

Windmills were introduced to the parched³ prairie by the railroads, which needed water along the tracks to fill the boilers⁴ of their steam locomotives. Farmers quickly borrowed the idea and bought windmills by the tens of thousands from more than 700 manufacturers. Some windmills even came with attachments⁵, like butter churns or belts that turned huge circular saws.

 

You now see wind turbines by the hundreds atop some California ridges⁶, when the wind always - or at least most of the time - steadily⁷ blows.

Today, some people collect and display Old West windmills of all sorts. On one, for instance, the blades fold up whenever the wind gets too strong, so it will not blow apart.

Windmills may be rare these days, but wind power is popular. There are entire wind farms in California, Iowa, and elsewhere. But they're fields of fiberglass wind turbines, not wooden windmills.

An array of 3,300 wind turbines in one California mountain pass draws enough energy to supply the entire power needs of the resort city of Palm Springs.

While windmills drove water pumps, wind turbines generate power that goes directly into the electric grid⁸. Turbine owners have discovered the same strengths of wind power that farmers learned a century ago: the wind is a marvelous, non-polluting energy source.

You never run out of it, and the price cannot be beat.

 

1 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

• Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
• Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。

2 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

3 parched   

adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干

参考例句：

• Hot winds parched the crops.热风使庄稼干透了。
• The land in this region is rather dry and parched.这片土地十分干燥。

4 boilers   

锅炉，烧水器，水壶( boiler的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Even then the boilers often burst or came apart at the seams. 甚至那时的锅炉也经常从焊接处爆炸或裂开。 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史
• The clean coal is sent to a crusher and the boilers. 干净的煤送入破碎机和锅炉。

5 attachments   

n.（用电子邮件发送的）附件( attachment的名词复数 )；附着；连接；附属物

参考例句：

• The vacuum cleaner has four different attachments. 吸尘器有四个不同的附件。
• It's an electric drill with a range of different attachments. 这是一个带有各种配件的电钻。

6 ridges   

n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊

参考例句：

• The path winds along mountain ridges. 峰回路转。
• Perhaps that was the deepest truth in Ridges's nature. 在里奇斯的思想上，这大概可以算是天经地义第一条了。

7 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

8 grid   

n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅

参考例句：

• In this application,the carrier is used to encapsulate the grid.在这种情况下，要用载体把格栅密封起来。
• Modern gauges consist of metal foil in the form of a grid.现代应变仪则由网格形式的金属片组成。