Shadowing Practice: How to fix clean energy’s storage problem - Learn English Speaking with Video
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This is the typical demand for electricity on a spring day in California.
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It starts growing around 6 a .m., then rises again around 6 p .m.
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Now, this line shows when wind power feeds the California power grid.
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Wind is variable, but often picks up at night.
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Solar panels, on the other hand, kick into gear around 7 a .m., generate a lot of electricity until the sun sets around 7 p .m.
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On most days, neither comes close to meeting the peak demands of the day.
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So, the power company relies on fossil fuels, like natural gas, to make up for the gap, which widens significantly when people use electricity the most.
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Since the power company can't store the solar and wind energy, it has to use fossil fuels at these times,
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which can be stored in barrels and tanks.
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It's kind of the big gap in our renewable energy system right now.
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If we don't figure out a way to store renewable energy, there's a chance that we're going to be still dependent on fossil fuels.
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So, how do we store some of this solar and wind energy for later?
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Right now you might be thinking, just use a battery.
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And you're not wrong.
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Batteries have improved immensely over the past few years, particularly lithium -ion batteries, which use a chemical reaction to store energy.
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Individual homes that have solar panels often use lithium -ion batteries to store energy.
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But there's a few reasons lithium -ion isn't perfect for the grid.
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This is Neil Dinesha, a founding writer at Heatmap, a climate news site, and he wrote about this for Vox in 2022.
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One is just the scale that's needed.
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We would need a lot at a level that we just don't really have right now.
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That's a challenge because lithium is only found in a few places on earth.
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But more importantly, like we need lithium -ion batteries for other things.
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Lithium -ion battery is really good for stuff that moves because it's relatively light.
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Meaning it's better suited for things like electric cars and portable electronics, not power grids that stay still.
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Luckily, there's another energy storage solution that's actually been around for a long time.
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This is the site for the first pump storage hydroelectric station in Southern Ireland.
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This is a type of energy storage called pump storage hydro.
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They were first built in Europe.
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The U .S built one in 1929.
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And many more were built in the 1970s and 80s as a way to store nuclear power.
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Today, these facilities are all over the world.
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There are 39 of them in the U .S.
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And they store energy in a really fascinating yet simple way.
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When energy demand is low,
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renewable or fossil fuel energy is used to pump water from a reservoir or river up a mountain into a higher reservoir.
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Basically converting this energy into what's called potential energy.
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So potential energy, you might kind of remember from high school physics.
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When a thing is up at a height, it has stored potential energy.
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When it's let go, it turns into kinetic energy.
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When that energy is needed, the water is released down the mountain,
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where it's converted into kinetic energy that spins a turbine and generates electricity for the grid.
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It's a way of combining water, a mountain, and gravity into a battery, and it can be about 90 % efficient,
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meaning only 10 % of this energy is lost in the process.
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Pump storage hydro works really well, but it's difficult to build more.
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Well, for starters, you need a mountain, and you need to haul out a mountain to put pumps inside it,
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and it takes a lot of money, and we don't have mountains everywhere.
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So the ideal way to store renewable energy would be something that's cheaper and smaller than a pump storage hydro plant,
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but works in roughly the same way.
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One company, Energy Vault, is also using gravity to store renewable energy, but without the water or mountain.
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Instead, renewable energy is used to lift heavy blocks of concrete up into the air, where it becomes potential energy.
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Then when it's needed, the blocks are released, spinning a turbine, which converts the potential energy back into electricity.
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Energy Vault calls this gravity energy storage, and while it's still being tested, the company claims it could be more than 80 % efficient.
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A company called QuidNet is working on a different version of the same principle.
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Their geomechanical pump storage unit uses renewable energy to pump water underground into a pressurized hole, where it can be stored as potential energy,
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then released back up to the surface to spin a turbine and generate electricity.
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Both techniques are betting on potential energy as a solution for storing renewable energy for the grid.
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I think this partly because potential energy has shown itself to be pretty efficient.
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Also, realistically, fewer moving parts.
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If all you're doing basically is using gravity to work with you, you have a pretty massive force of nature on your side right there.
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But potential energy isn't the only possible solution.
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Other companies are using renewable energy to superheat salt, insulating it, then releasing that heat to create steam or hot air to drive a turbine.
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Basically storing renewables by converting them to thermal energy.
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Then there's a company that's betting on rusted iron.
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They're called iron air batteries and what they do is they utilize the chemical reaction
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that creates rust to store and discharge energy.
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This thing
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that we all sort of think of as an inconvenience could be really useful is just kind of beautiful to me.
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Right now these ideas are all in various stages of development, but they are attracting investors.
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And the hope is that several will work because one might not fit every power grid.
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The grid, renewable energy overall, is going to be a sort of patchwork solution.
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And so the more we try these solutions,
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the closer we get to figuring out exactly what the right mix is for what we need for the greater future.
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Esta lección de conversación se basa en el vídeo “How to fix clean energy’s storage problem”. Las palabras que más se repiten: energy, renewable, store, potential, pump. Este vídeo tiene 72 frases y 1011 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 5:21. El hablante habla rápido, unas 189 palabras por minuto, así que espera sonidos enlazados y reducidos. Solo el 79 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés, por lo que el vocabulario es exigente.
Vocabulario clave de este vídeo
15 palabras del vídeo que vale la pena aprender, con su pronunciación y significado:
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| renewable adjetivo | /ɹɪˈnu.ə.bl̩/ | renovable |
| pump sustantivo | /pʌmp/ | bomba, pompa |
| grid sustantivo | /ɡɹɪd/ | cuadrícula, matriz |
| lithium sustantivo | /ˈlɪθi.əm/ | litio |
| gravity sustantivo | /ˈɡɹævɪti/ | gravedad |
| convert verbo | /kənˈvɝt/ | convertir |
| fossil sustantivo | /ˈfɑsl̩/ | fósil |
| turbine sustantivo | /ˈtɜː.baɪn/ | turbina |
| efficient adjetivo | /ɪˈfɪʃənt/ | eficiente, eficaz |
| spin verbo | /spɪn/ | girar, rotar |
| generate verbo | /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ə.ɹeɪt/ | generar |
| reservoir sustantivo | /ˈɹɛz.ə(ɹ).vwɑɹ/ | embalse, pantano |
| rust sustantivo | /ɹʌst/ | óxido, herrumbre |
| technique sustantivo | /tɛkˈniːk/ | técnica |
| gear sustantivo | /ɡɪɚ/ | pertrecho, pertrechos |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Significado |
|---|---|
| figure out verbo | averiguar, captar |
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | can be stored · is only found · were built |
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | have improved · that's actually been · has stored |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 10 contracciones y formas reducidas, como don't, isn't, you're. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “th”: lithium /ˈlɪθi.əm/, thermal /ˈθɜːməl/
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: efficient /ɪˈfɪʃənt/, pressurize /ˈpɹɛʃəɹaɪz/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: electricity /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/, electronics /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɑ.nɪks/, importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/, inconvenience /ɪnkənˈvinjəns/, hydroelectric /ˌhʌɪdrəʊɪˈlɛktrɪk/
Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:
- s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: spin /spɪn/, starter /ˈstɑɹ.tɚ/
- /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: gravity /ˈɡɹævɪti/, convert /kənˈvɝt/, reservoir /ˈɹɛz.ə(ɹ).vwɑɹ/, variable [ˈvæɹ.i.ə.bl̩], investor /ɪnˈvɛs.tə(ɹ)/
- /z/ — sonora, no /s/: reservoir /ˈɹɛz.ə(ɹ).vwɑɹ/, physics /ˈfɪz.ɪks/, utilize /ˈjuː.tɪ.laɪz/, pressurize /ˈpɹɛʃəɹaɪz/
Cómo practicar con este vídeo
- Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
- Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
- Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como renewable, pump, grid.
¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.