听播客学英语 107 如何保持温暖

 　　If you visit upland areas of Britain – places like the mountains of Scotland¹, or Wales², or the Pennine Hills in northern England – you will see a lot of sheep. Many of the sheep are in places where there are no walls or hedges³ to keep them in their fields. So the sheep can wander where they like, over the hills, and of course on the roads as well. Sheep do not take much notice of cars. So, imagine you are driving along a little road in northern England. The sun is shining. You look at the beautiful views across the hills and the valleys. You turn a corner. And you find a flock⁴ of sheep on the road. The sheep look at you. You look at the sheep. You toot your car horn⁵. The sheep look at you some more. Then slowly, they move and let you past.

　　The sheep particularly like the road in the evening, because it is warm. During the day, the sun shines on the road. If you try to walk across a sunny road in bare feet, you will know how hot the road can be. When evening comes, the road is a nice warm place for the sheep to go to sleep. And the sheep do not want to move, just because a car comes round the corner. Well, you would not like getting out of bed to let a car come past.

　　What is the point of this little story about sheep? It is that roads are very good at absorbing heat from the sun. A laboratory⁶ in England wants to see if it can use this fact to keep roads free of ice and snow in the winter. It wants to place pipes filled with water underneath⁷ the road. When the sun shines, the road will become hot and the water in the pipes will become hot too. A small pump will pump the hot water into a tank buried in the ground at the side of the road. The tank will be heavily insulated⁸. That means⁹ that the heat will not be able to escape, and the water will stay warm for a long time. And on cold winter nights, the pump will pump the warm water back into the pipes underneath the road. The warm water will heat the road surface and keep it free of ice.

　　The scientists and technologists call this technology “Interseasonal Heat Transfer”, or IHT. It is of course a very simple technology, but many people think that intelligent use of simple technology will be very important in the future. Climate change and the rising prices of fossil¹⁰ fuels like coal, gas and oil make it urgent¹¹ to find new ways of doing things which will not damage the environment. If we can store heat from roads, car parks, airport runways, roofs, school playgrounds etc in summer, we could use the heat during the winter – not just for keeping roads free of ice, but for heating¹² buildings and providing hot water.

　　In the last podcast, I asked you to imagine that you were very rich, and had lots of servants. Naturally, you have a tennis court and a swimming pool – probably you have three tennis courts and two swimming pools. How will you keep your swimming pools warm in winter? Easy – place pipes filled with water under the tennis courts to collect heat from the sun in summer. Store the hot water in insulated tanks and use it to heat the swimming pools in winter.

1 Scotland   

n.苏格兰

参考例句：

• He has been hiking round Scotland for a month.他围着苏格兰徒步旅行了一个月。
• Scotland is to the north of England.苏格兰在英格兰之北。

2 Wales   

n.威尔士(在大不列颠岛西南部)

参考例句：

• The company are opening up a new factory in Wales.公司将在威尔士开一家新工厂。
• She teaches English at the University of Wales.她在威尔士大学教英语。

3 hedges   

树篱( hedge的名词复数 )； 保护手段； 防止损失（尤指金钱）的手段

参考例句：

• Farmers often enclose their land with hedges. 农夫们常用树篱将他们的地围起来。
• She came across butchered hedges and flowerbeds choked with weeds. 她发现树篱被糟蹋，花坛里野草丛生。

4 flock   

n.羊群，一群，大量；vi.群集，聚集，成群

参考例句：

• A flock of customers were waiting for the store to open.一群顾客在等候着商店开门。
• A few sheep have been lost from the flock.羊群里少了几只羊。

5 horn   

n.号角；警报器；角

参考例句：

• This horn is out of tune.这小号音调不正。
• He played the tune on the horn.他用号吹奏了这首曲子。

6 laboratory   

n.实验室，化验室

参考例句：

• She has donated money to establish a laboratory.她捐款成立了一个实验室。
• Our laboratory equipment isn't perfect,but we must make do.实验室设备是不够理想，但我们只好因陋就简。

7 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

8 insulated   

绝缘的，隔热的

参考例句：

• This room is insulated against noise. 这个房间隔音。
• The wires must be insulated from touching each other, with a rubber covering. 这些金属线一定要用橡胶皮包起来，以免相互接触。

9 means   

n.方法，手段，折中点，物质财富

参考例句：

• That man used artful means to find out secrets.那人使用狡猾的手段获取机密。
• We must get it done by some means or other.我们总得想办法把它干完。

10 fossil   

n.化石，食古不化的人，老顽固

参考例句：

• At this distance of time it is difficult to date the fossil.时间隔得这么久了，很难确定这化石的年代。
• The man is a fossil.那人是个老顽固。

11 urgent   

a.紧急的，急迫的，紧要的

参考例句：

• He asked to see the manager for something urgent. 他有急事求见经理。
• A part of this urgent task was allotted to us. 这项紧急任务的一部分分给了我们。

12 heating   

n.加热，供暖，暖气装置；adj.加热的，供暖的

参考例句：

• They will install a heating and lighting system in our house.他们将在我们家装上供热供电系统。
• If the pressure is too low,the heating system will act up.如果压力太低，供暖系统就会出毛病。