VOA慢速2010年-Development Report_ Breathing Easier The Art

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

More than three billion people are at risk from indoor air pollution because of the heating or cooking fuels they use. Most live in Africa, India and China. They use biomass fuels like wood, crop waste, animal waste or coal. These solid fuels may be the least costly¹ fuels available. But they are also a major cause of health problems and death.

For more than thirty years, the Aprovecho Research Center has been designing cleaner, low-cost cooking stoves for the developing world. Dean² Still is the director of the group which is based in the United States. He notes a World Health Organization estimate that more than one and a half million people a year die from breathing smoke from solid fuels.

DEAN STILL: "And half of the people on planet Earth every day use wood or biomass for cooking. These are the people on Earth who have less money, and the richer people use oil and gas. It's been estimated that wood is running out more quickly than oil and gas. And so it is very important for the poorer people to have very efficient stoves that protect their forests and that protect their health."

Every year Aprovecho holds a "stove camp" at its testing station in Cottage Grove³, Oregon. Engineers, inventors, students and others come together to design and test different methods and materials for improving stoves.

Over the years, the group has made stoves using mud, bricks, sheet metal, clay, ceramics⁴ and old oil drums. Most of the stoves look like large, deep cooking pots. They have an opening at the bottom for the fire and a place on top to put a pot.

In the late nineteen seventies, Aprovecho produced a popular stove called the Lorena. The Lorena was very good at reducing smoke and warming homes. But new tests years later found that it was not very efficient. The Lorena used twice as much wood as an open fire, and took much longer to heat food.

Since then, Dean Still says they have experimented with countless⁵ other designs.

DEAN STILL: "Our goal is to make a very inexpensive stove -- let's say five dollars -- that makes very, very little smoke, so it's safe for health, diminishes⁶ global warming and diminishes deforestation. And so it's an ongoing⁷ problem to work on."

Aprovecho has now partnered with a stove manufacturer in China. The company is making Aprovecho's first mass produced stoves. They are said to use forty to fifty percent less wood than an open fire, and produce fifty to seventy-five percent less smoke. A company called StoveTec is selling them through its Web site for less than ten dollars. Dean Still says that more than one hundred thousand have been sold so far.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. I'm Howard Neuberg.

1 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

2 Dean   

n.(大学)院长，系主任，教务长

参考例句：

• The students much like the new dean.学生们很喜欢这位新系主任。
• Who is the dean of the Foreign Languages Department?外语系主任是谁？

3 grove   

n.林子，小树林，园林

参考例句：

• On top of the hill was a grove of tall trees.山顶上一片高大的树林。
• The scent of lemons filled the grove.柠檬香味充满了小树林。

4 ceramics   

n.制陶业；陶器

参考例句：

• an exhibition of ceramics by Picasso 毕加索陶瓷作品展
• The ceramics bore the imprint of Luca della Robbia. 陶器上印有卢卡·德拉·罗比亚的字样。

5 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

6 diminishes   

（使）减少，缩小( diminish的第三人称单数 )； 减弱…的权势

参考例句：

• Like printing paper money, issuing too much stock diminishes the basic value of each share. 就像印发纸币那样，发行太多的股票会降低每份股票的基本价值。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• For a target of any thinkness, the undeflected flux diminishes exponentially with thickness. 对具有任意厚度的靶，无偏折的通量随厚度扫指数规律而衰减。

7 ongoing   

adj.进行中的，前进的

参考例句：

• The problem is ongoing.这个问题尚未解决。
• The issues raised in the report relate directly to Age Concern's ongoing work in this area.报告中提出的问题与“关心老人”组织在这方面正在做的工作有直接的关系。