About five years ago, an American electrical engineer named Scott Brusaw and his wife Julie came up with the idea of putting solar panels on the ground rather than the roof. Then they began to develop the Solar Roadway. The Solar Roadway is an intelligent road that provides clean renewable energy using power from the sun while providing safer driving conditions, along with power and data delivery. They predict that the Solar Roadway will pay for itself through the generation of electricity along with other forms of income and that the same money that is being used to build and resurface current roads can be used to build the Solar Roadways.
Each Solar Road Panel measures roughly 4 meters by 4 meters and contains a microprocessor (微处理器) that monitors and controls the panel, while communicating with neighboring panels and the vehicles traveling overhead. The inventors suggest that this provides a communications device every 4 meters on every road which could be used for example to warn drivers of cars which are moving across a centre line and various other speed control problems. The top of the Solar Road panels is made of super-strong glass that would offer vehicles the tractions (抓地力) they need.
According to the inventors, the Solar Roadway creates and carries clean renewable electricity and therefore electric vehicles can be recharged at any conveniently located rest stop, or at any business that has paved Solar Road Panels in their parking lots.
The inventors say their Solar Roadway has many functions and advantages from main roads to driveways, parking lots, bike paths, sidewalks and runways. The Federal Highway Administration has given Brusaw $100,000 to develop the invention and Brusaw hopes to build a smart-road parking lot in the coming spring .
24. In the inventors’ opinion, the Solar Roadway _____.
A. is too expensive to build at present B. will bring them a large sum of money
C. can provide as many data as present computers
D. costs no more money than current roads
25. The underlined word “they” in Paragraph 2 refers to _____.
A. the panels B. the vehicles C. the researchers D. the inventors
26. It can be inferred from the text that _____.
A. the Solar Roadway is not available for gas-powered cars
B. $100,000 is only enough to build a smart-road parking lot
C. the Solar Roadway has already been put into use
D. future electric vehicles can be charged anytime and anywhere
27. What can be the best title for the text?
A. The influence the Solar Roadway has on people B. The great changes on the roadway
C. Solar-powered smart road of the future D. The Solar Road — a much faster road
DBAC
A. Profits enlarging B. Technology developing C. Education investing D. Benefits transferring E. Dominance disappearing F. A nation rising |
The following is an imaginary diary entry written by US president. This diary is part of Global Trends 2025, which was written by the US National Intelligence Council
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The
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The
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Global wealth and economic power will shift from West to East.
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The transition from old fuels to new will be slow, as will the development of new technologies that present feasible alternatives to fossil fuels or help eliminate food and water problems. All current technologies are inadequate, and new ones will probably not be commercially possible by 2025