Ex. 2. Translate the following words given below paying attention to different suffixes and prefixes.

Rapid - rapidly - rapidity

usual - usually – unusual

to investigate – investigater – investigation

to operate – operator – operation

sufficient – sufficiently – insufficient

to place – replace – replacement – displace

local – locality – location – localize

part – partly

to value – valuable

to equip – equipment – reequip

Ex. 3. Translate the following word-combinations.

Plant’s power capacity

hydroelectric power plant production

high dam technology

air circulation techniques

water-regime control

full scale energy forest plantations

wood-fired district heating plant

emergency direct current relay

 

HYDROPOWER

Water power was used by the Romans more than 1500 years ago to gring flour. Water wheels are known to have provided motive power for a wide variety of European manufactures.

New stage in the utilization of water-power began in the 19-th century with the invention of hydraulic turbine to pro­duce electricity. The first one invented by Founeyron in 1827, with the capacity of 37 KW was followed by many more. During last 80 years there appeared Pelton-, Francis-, Kaplan-turbines. Turbines intended for different overfall and head of water de­rived their names from their inventors.

Hydropower is widely utilized all over the world. Nowadays great amounts of total electric supply of the world comes from waterpower. In such countries as Norway, Sweden and Switzerland most of their electricity is produced from waterpower. In 1982 Sweden's hydroplants produced 54,191 gigawatt hours of electricity accounting for about 55 per cent of country's electricity production. (One gigawatt equals billion watts.) That is why the overall cost of electricity in Sweden is one of the lowest electricity prices in the world. Only Norway's 100 per cent hydropower system is cheeper. These countries have been developing large hydroelectric power stations because they lack a sufficient fuel supply.

The tendency nowadays even for countries that have large coal and oil resources is to utilize their water resources in order to conserve their natural fuels. It is estimated, that every 3 000 kilowatt-hours generated by hydropower saves about 6 barrels of crude oil or 2 tons of coal (one barrel equals 1145 litres). The Grand Coulee Dam on Columbia River, America's biggest power producer saves nearly 190 million barrels annual­ly.

Thus speaking of the advantages of hydropower, saving of natural fuels is the first one. It should be noted also, that hydropower is renewable and is produced without pollution or radiation. And moreover hydropower is cheap and abundant.

As far as the disadvantages are concerned, they are as follows. Firstly, the durability of the construction and, con­sequently, great capital investment. Secondly, settlements, forested and agricultural areas have been flooded and local climates have been affected as a result of the construction of hydroelectric power plants.

But nevertheless value of hydropower continues to grow.

Hydropower engineering is developing mainly by construct­ing high capacity stations integrated into river system known as cascades. Such cascades are already in operation on the Dnieper, the Volga and the Angara.

The greatest Angara-Yenisei Cascade is known to have 17 gigawatt total capacity.

 

EXERCISES

Ex. 1. Translate the following words and remember them.

Tide, tidal, through quality, output, to require, to carry, to change, sensitive, similar.

Ex. 2. Translate the following words given below paying attention to different suffixes and prefixes.

To rotate – rotor – rotary – rotation

heat – heaten – overheat – reheat

Convert – converter – conversion

connect – connection – disconnect

possible – possibility – impossible

electric – electrify – electrical – electrification

need – needless

store – storage

Ex. 3. Translate the following word-combinations.

High-tension transmission line

alternating current transformer

transmission line wire insulation

temperature difference

high-voltage transmission lines

high quality steel production

transmission line performance

 

TIDES AND TIDAL POWER PLANTS

Tidal energy is one of the natural sources of energy. The periodic rise and fall of the ocean on a coast line is well known. Utilization of tidal energy has been studied in a number of countries such as Russia, the USA, France, Canada, England and others. The potential capacity of the tides is evaluated in different ways and is expressed by a tremendous figure which exceeds the output of all the electric power plants now in operation. Tidal forces are expected to make considerable contribution to future electricity production.

By intercepting ocean or sea water at high tide in a basin and directing it back through turbines at low tide one could create a kind of a working hydro-electric plant. Although there are tides along all coasts of all countries not all places possess the necessary qualities for the installation of an efficient, reliable and economical tidal power plant. The most important technical features are the amplitude of the tide, the surface area of the basin and the size of the dam required. Suitable places can be found for instance, on the French coast and it was here, in the delta of the Rance River that the first commercial tidal power plant with a 240 000 kilowatt capacity was built.

Russia's tidal power sources are among the greatest in the world. No wonder that several large tidal po­wer plants are planned to be built here. Kislaya Bay on the Ba­rents Sea was found to be the very place for the construction of the first experimental tidal electric station in our count­ry. At high tide the water from the Barents Sea flows in through an operating turbine, while at low tide the water is conducted back to the sea through that very turbine making it work in both directions. Such a turbine makes it possible to use both high and low tides to the best advantage. When building this station the Soviet specialists took into account the experience of the French specialists and introduced quite a few of their own ideas, first of all, in methods of construction to make them not so costly. The building of the station was assembled in Murmansk far removed from the Kislaya Bay and then was pulled all in one piece by tugboats to its place. Then it was installed on an underwater foundation prepared beforehand.

Russia has many places along its coastline which would make it possible to build power plants of this type of unprecedented capacities. The most attractive of these sites is the Penzhinskaya Bay in the Okhotsk Sea. The 75-km-wide bay with rocky shores and tides 14 meters high makes it possible to build a tidal power plant of a fantastic capacity up to 100 000 000 kw there. This plant would equal more than 15 Krasnoyarakaya hydro-power stations.

 

EXERCISES

Ex. 1. Translate the following words and remember them.

Direction, directly, thermonuclear, fusion, amount, to produce, to enable, to expect, insulator, leaking off.

Ex. 2. Translate the following-words given below paying attention to different suffixes and prefixes.

To damage – damageable

to emit – emissive – emission

to add – addition

constant – constancy – constantly

to establish – establishment

rule – ruler

similar – similarity

Ex. 3. Translate the following word-combinations.

High-capacity storage cells

the Soviet-made hydrogen-air electrochemical generator

power supply increase programme

energy balance

high-voltage switch

THERMONUCLEAR FUSION

Nuclear Physics gives two directions for solving the ener­gy problem. One of them is the uranium-based electric power plants which are already in operation and give more than one fifth of all the energy produced at present. However the fuel for such a station is uranium the reserves of which are limi­ted. The second way for solving the energy problem is the thermonuclear fusion. Physicists have been interested for years in finding an explanation of the source of energy of the sun. The sun is in fact a gigantic thermonuclear reactor where hundreds of millions of tons of hydrogen are fusing every second, releasing a vast amount of energy. The scientists asked if there is any possibility to reproduce this process on Earth. After all, hydrogen is one of the components of water. Why should electric power stations not work on water fuel? A glass of water could replace a ton of oil and mankind would receive a practically in­exhaustible source of energy.

Now the problem is to find a way of performing this reaction at a controlled rate. The most accessible for practical use is thermonuclear reaction in a mixture of heavy isotopes of hydro­gen – deuterium and tritium. Through the fusion of the nuclei of these elements ten million times more energy is released per unit of fuel weight than in the combustion of conventional orga­nic fuel. However, the reaction which can produce useful energy will take place only at very high temperatures of about 100 mil­lion degrees Centigrade, where matter can only exist in the form of plasma. The problem is how to keep plasma at such a tempera­ture because no material can withstand such heat without vaporizing. Soviet scientists suggested the idea of trapping plasma in a strong magnetic field. For this purpose the first Tokamak installation in the world was designed and built at the Kurchatov Atomic Energy Institute in the late 1960's. The Tokamak is a ring-shaped vacuum chamber where the magnetic field created by the electric current isolates the plasma from the walls of the chamber. The results obtained were so impressive that these installations began to spread to all the countries engaged in controlled thermonuclear synthesis research. In the summer of 1975 the Kurchatov institute started the world's largest experimental thermonuclear installation Tokamak-10 and obtained plasma with a temperature which exists only in the depth of the sun – 90 million degrees. Soviet scientists hope to receive plasma with a temperature of 100 million deg­rees on Tokamak-15, the start-up of which took place on December 28, 1988. This is a new step to the establishment of ther­monuclear power engineering.

 

EXERCISES