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Fifteen terawatts. That's 150 billion 100-watt light bulbs burning 24/7 for a year. Which is how muchenergy humanity now uses annually.
15太瓦。這足夠1500億盞100瓦的燈泡每周七天每天24小時的工作一整年，而這也就是人們現在每年消耗的能量。
Most of it is dirty. Burning coal sullies the atmosphere and leaves toxic ash mountains. Natural gas is better for CO2 but not enough to halt global warming. So the hope of man who combat climate change is that alternative energy—electricity from sunshine, wind orlow-carbon nuclear—can begin to replace fossil fuels.
這其中的多數都是骯臟的。燃燒煤污染大氣并且產生一山一山的有毒煤渣。天然氣產生的CO2少些，但是仍不足以中止全球變暖。因此人們對抗氣候變化的希望就落在了替代性能源上——太陽能發電、風力發電，或者低碳的核能源已經開始替代化石燃料。
And renewables like wind and solar have been booming. There are now nearly 240,000 megawatts worth of wind turbines globally, and the U.S. added nearly 2,000 megawatts of solar in 2011.
像風能和太陽能這樣的可再生能源的確在暴漲。現在全球有將近240 000兆瓦的風力機組，美國在2011年增加了將近2 000兆瓦的太陽能發電。
Unfortunately, the additional renewables are not helping cut back on fossil fuels much. That's according to an analysis published in the journal Nature Climate Change. In fact, over the last 50 years, adding a unit of alternative energy to the grid displaced a mere 1/10 of a unit of fossil fuel-fired power. And those alternative energy additions have been small.
不幸的是，這些額外的可再生能源并未減少多少化石燃料的使用。這是根據《自然氣候變化》雜志的分析得到的結論。事實上，在過去的50年里，每增加1單位的替代性能源，只有0.1單位的化石燃料燃燒提供的能源被替代。那而且那些替代性能源的增加本身就很少。
In other words, to get away from fossil fuels requires not just expanding alternatives but also discouraging the use of coal, oil and natural gas. Carbon tax anyone?
換句話講，想要擺脫化石燃料，不僅僅需要擴大替代性能源，還要降低煤、石油和天然氣的使用。是不是該向某些人征收碳排放稅呢？
