《經濟學人》精讀71：Welcome an electric world. Worry about the transition
OIL shaped the 20th century.? In war, ?the French leader Georges Clemenceau said, petroleum was “as vital as blood”.? In? peace ?the oil business dominated stock markets,? bankrolled? despots? and propped up the economies of entire countries. But the 21st century will see oil’s influence wane. Cheap natural gas, renewable energy, electric vehicles and coordinated efforts to tackle global warming together mean that the power source of choice will be electricity.
That is welcome. The electricity era will diminish the clout of the $2trn oil trade, reduce the choke points that have made oil a source of global tension, put energy production into local hands and make power more accessible to the poor. It will also make the world cleaner and safer—reassuringly dull, even. The trouble is getting from here to there. Not just oil producers, but everyone else, too, may find the transition? perilous .
bankroll: to supply money for ( a business, project, person, etc.)
despot: a ruler who has total power and who often uses that power in cruel and unfair ways
perilous: full of danger: dangerous
石油早就了20世紀，在戰爭年代，石油就像血液壹樣重要；在和平年代，它掌控著經濟命脈...
Oil and electricity are a study in contrasts (see our special report). Oil is a wonder fuel, packed with more energy by weight than coal and by volume than natural gas (both still the main sources of electricity). It is easy to ship, store and turn into myriad refined products,? from petrol to plastics to pharmaceuticals. ?But it is found only in specific places favoured by geology. Its production is concentrated in a few hands, and its oligopolistic suppliers—from the Seven Sisters to OPEC and Russia—have consistently attempted to drip-feed it on to the market to keep prices high.Concentration and cartelisation make oil prone to crises and the governments of oil-rich states prone to corruption and abuse.
石油有很多的優點，很容易運輸，儲存和合成其他產品... from petrol to plastics to pharmaceuticals 記住這個表達?
但石油只產在某幾個國家與地區，就讓這些國家形成了壟斷...
Different kettles of fuel
Electricity is less user-friendly than oil. It is hard to store, it loses its? oomph? when shipped over long distances, and its transmission and distribution require hands-on regulation. But in every other way, it promises a more peaceful world.
Electricity is hard to monopolise because it can be produced from numerous sources of fuel, from natural gas and nuclear to wind, solar, hydro and? biomass . The more these replace coal and oil as fuel for generation, the cleaner it promises to be. Given the right weather conditions, it is abundant geographically, too. Anyone can produce electricity—fromgreener-than-thou Germans to energy-poor Kenyans.
oomph: power or energy ( his argument lacks oomph; the truck doesn't have the oomph to haul the boat)
電力能源雖然不如石油方便，但是卻不會被某幾個國家壟斷，很多方法可以產生電力能源：風力，太陽能，氫能等
True, the technologies used to produce electricity from renewable resources, and the rare earths and minerals that some, including solar panels and wind turbines, rely on, could be subject to protectionism and trade wars. China, which produces 85% of the world’s rare earths, sharply tightened export quotas in 2010 with OPEC-like zeal. America and the European Union have? slapped? tariffs on Chinese solar-panel imports. Yet the vital substances involved in generating and storing electricity are not burned up like oil. Once a stock of them exists it can for the most part be recycled. And, even if today’s output is concentrated, for most materials the planet has undeveloped deposits or substitutes that can? thwart? a would-be monopolist. Rare earths, for example, are not rare—one of them,? cerium , is almost as common as zinc.
Electricity also rewards co-operation.Because renewables are? intermittent , regional grids are needed to ship electricity from where it is plentiful to where it is not. This could replicate the pipeline politics that Russia engages in with its natural-gas shipments to Europe. More likely, as grids are interconnected so as to diversify supply, more interdependent countries will conclude that manipulating the market is self-defeating. After all, unlike gas, you cannot keep electricity in the ground.
thwart: to prevent someone from doing something or to stop something from happening
intermittent: starting, stopping, and starting again: not constant or steady
An electric world is therefore desirable.But getting there will be hard, for two reasons. First, as rents dry up, authoritarian oil-dependent governments could collapse. Few will miss them, but their passing could cause social unrest and strife. Oil producers had a taste of what is to come when the price plunged in 2014-16, which led to deep, and unpopular, austerity measures. Saudi Arabia and Russia have temporarily stopped the rot by curtailing production and pushing oil prices higher, as part of an“OPEC+” agreement. They need high prices to buy time to? wean? their economies off oil. But the higher the oil price, the greater the incentive for energy-thirsty behemoths like China and India to invest in renewable-powered electrification to give themselves cheaper and more secure supplies. Should the producers’ alliance crumble in the face of a long-term decline in demand for oil, prices could once again tumble, this time for good.
wean: to start feeding ( a child or young animal) food other than its mother's milk
從石油能源時代轉換到電力能源時代是壹個艱難的過程，第壹個難點就是石油價格下降的話，這些產油國就會產生動蕩和沖突...
That will lead to the second danger: the fallout for investors in oil assets. America’s frackers need only look at the country’s? woebegone? coalminers to catch a glimpse of their fate in a distant post-oil future. The International Energy Agency, a forecaster, reckons that, if action to limit global warming to below 2°C accelerates in coming years,$1trn of oil assets could be stranded, ie, rendered obsolete. If the transition is unexpectedly sudden, stockmarkets will be dangerously exposed.
The tension is inescapable.On the one hand government policy should press forward with the transition as fast as it can. On the other, a rapid transition will cause upheaval. Expect the big consumers, especially India and China, to force the pace.
woebegone: looking or feeling very sad
點評：矛盾是無法避免的，壹方面各國政府希望盡快轉變到可持續的能源（產油國除外），另壹方面這個轉變過程速度太快的話會造成動亂。壹言以蔽之，就是錢惹的禍
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Results
Lexile?Measure: 1100L - 1200L
Mean Sentence Length: 16.09
Mean Log Word Frequency: 3.21
Word Count: 853
這篇文章的藍思值是在1100-1200L， 是經濟學人裏普通難度的文章~
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