Worldwide every
day, we devour the energy equivalent of about 200 million barrels of oil. Most
of the energy on Earth comes from the Sun. In fact enough energy from the Sun
hits the planet's surface each minute to cover our needs for an entire year, we
just need to find an efficient way to use it. So far the energy in oil has been
cheaper and easier to get at. But as supplies dwindle, this will change, and we
will need to cure our addiction to oil. Burning wood satisfied
most energy needs until the steam-driven industrial revolution, when
energy-dense coal became the fuel of choice. Coal is still used, mostly in power
stations, to cover one quarter of our energy needs, but its use has been
declining since we started pumping up oil. Coal is the least efficient,
unhealthiest and most environmentally damaging fossil fuel, but could make a
comeback, as supplies are still plentiful; its reserves are five times larger
than oil's. Today petroleum, a mineral oil obtained from below
the surface of the Earth and used to produce petrol, diesel oil and various
other chemical substances, provides around 40% of the world's energy needs,
mostly fuelling automobiles. The U.S. consumes a quarter of all oil, and
generates a similar proportion of greenhouse gas emissions. The
majority of oil comes from the Middle East, which has half of known reserves.
But other significant sources include Russia, North America, Norway, Venezuela
and the North Sea. Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refugel could be a major
new U.S. source, to reduce reliance on foreign imports. Most
experts predict we will exhaust easily accessible reserves within 50 years,
though opinions and estimates vary. We could fast reach an energy crisis in the
next few decades, when demand exceeds supply. As conventional reserves become
more difficult to access, others such as oil shales and tar sands may be used
instead. Petrol could also be obtained from coal. Since we
started using fossil fuels, we have released 400 billion tonnes of carbon, and
burning the entire reserves could eventually raise world temperatures by 13℃.
Among other horrors, this would result in the destruction of all rainforests and
the melting of all Arctic ice.
单选题
"...we will need to cure our addiction to oil." Why does the author say
so?