シャドーイング練習: Do we Need Nuclear Energy to Stop Climate Change? - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ

レッスンを作成中...
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Do we need nuclear energy to stop climate change?
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More and more voices from science, environmental activists and the press have been saying so in recent years.
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But this comes as a shock to those who are fighting against nuclear energy and the problems that come with it.
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So, who's right?
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Well, it's complicated.
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To slow rapid climate change, the world needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero.
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In 2018, three -quarters of global emissions were released through energy production, namely by burning fossil fuels.
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Energy is a broad term that describes all sorts of stuff, from moving things and people around, to putting things big and small together, or heating our homes.
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Currently, 84 % of the world's primary energy comes from fossil fuels, 33 % from oil, 27 % from coal, and 24 % from gas.
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Around 10 % of the global oil supply is just used to burn in boilers to make our homes cozy and warm.
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Only about 16 % of global energy is from low emission sources, almost 7 % from hydroelectric, 5 % from solar, wind,
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bioenergy, wave, tidal and geothermal combined, and about 4 % from nuclear.
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So we pretty much rely on coal, oil and gas to keep our civilization going, which means it's actually very hard to transition away from them.
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To have a chance of escaping fossil fuels without throwing humanity back into the Stone Age,
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one of the most impactful things we can do is to electrify as many sectors as possible.
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Electricity is the stuff that appears like magic when you plug something into a socket so you can watch YouTube.
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Every industry that can switch from burning fossil fuels to electricity needs to do so, from electric cars to electric heaters.
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Why do we need to bet so hard on electricity?
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Because we can produce electricity with low -emission technologies like solar, wind or nuclear.
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So electricity is a real lever for a radical transition.
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But there are a few problems making this transition really hard.
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First of all, in most places in the world, electricity is still generated mostly by burning fossil fuels.
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And not only that, in the last 20 years, the world's electricity usage increased 73 % in absolute terms.
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While we are installing renewables at record speeds, at the same time, the amount of fossil fuel we're burning for electricity still keeps rising year by year.
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Renewables have so far not been able to catch up with the demand for new electricity, and so despite our progress,
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emissions from electricity are still rising worldwide worldwide.
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The other alternative to fossil fuels is nuclear, and even though it's not renewable, its greenhouse gas emissions are tiny compared to burning stuff.
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But in the last 20 years, nuclear has basically stagnated.
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Countries like China, India, and South Korea built new reactors, while Germany and Japan have been actively taking their nuclear plants offline.
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Which seems a bit weird
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if we look at the countries with the most low -carbon electricity in the world
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that get most of their juice mainly from two sources nuclear or hydropower.
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Take France and Sweden.
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In France only around 10 % comes from fossil fuels
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while 67 % comes from nuclear and 23 % from renewables primarily hydro.
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In Sweden almost 30 % comes from nuclear power and about 45 % from hydro.
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So we know that nuclear energy can work at scale.
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On the technical side, because of the lack of investment and innovation in the last few decades,
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the majority of the world's nuclear reactors are pretty old technology that's very costly to replace.
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In most Western countries, building nuclear reactors has become very expensive for a variety of reasons, like a loss of know -how in constructing them,
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policy changes and increased regulatory constraints so it can take a decade or longer just to finish a power plant.
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In contrast, countries like South Korea, China, India, and Russia are able to build new nuclear reactors comparatively quickly and at a competitive cost.
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Still, generally in the West, the current generation of nuclear power plants are more expensive to build and maintain than most fossil fuel alternatives.
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There are also the concerns about nuclear waste and the fear of accidents, but we cover those in other videos in more detail.
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We have designs for nuclear reactors that solve many of their problems, namely small reactors that take less time and money to get started.
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There are also next generation technologies that can already turn radioactive waste into new fuel,
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but so far these have not been deployed at a scale where they can have a significant impact on the nuclear sector.
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Considering these uncertainties, some argue that nuclear power is a dangerous relic of the past
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and that we should just let it go and focus on renewables.
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But while renewables undoubtedly are the future of electricity,
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they still have their own huge challenges to overcome before they can take over the vast majority of the electricity grid.
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The main problem is reliability and consistency.
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It's not always windy and the sun doesn't always shine especially in the mornings and evenings when humans need the most electricity.
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The variations between seasons don't make this issue easier.
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To make renewables reliable
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and not risk blackouts we need massive storage capacities where we can save energy collected
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when the sun or wind are at their peak and release it later when we actually need it.
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Until this is possible other sources of electricity need to provide a controllable load
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that creates the reliability of supply that our civilization needs to run properly.
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Eventually, we will be able to do this with renewables, but we need a lot of batteries or storage power plants.
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Right now, we simply don't have the tech and the capacities to make this transition fast enough to replace fossil fuels.
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But even if we could, there's another aspect we have to take into account.
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We're not just trying to kick fossil fuels out of electricity, we're trying to replace energy with electricity.
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If we're going to electrify sectors that currently use fossil fuels,
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like cars or heating, we will need significantly more electricity than we're currently using everywhere around the world.
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And if the electricity needs of the world population continue to grow as they have over the last 20 years, we'll need even more.
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It all comes down to one thing.
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No energy source is perfect, all have their own unique problems.
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Both renewables and nuclear energy require time, investment and technological innovation.
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On their own, neither is ready to remove fossil fuels from our electricity grid, although activists on both sides claim that they are.
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In the end, the question is how we want to deal with all these challenges.
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Should we give up nuclear immediately and at least temporarily accept higher emissions?
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Will we try to extend the life of current nuclear reactors and shut them down afterwards while solving the shortcomings of renewables?
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Or will we invest in new nuclear technology to get new nuclear reactor types that are cheaper and safer?
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Or will we maybe do both?
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Opinion part starts here.
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Considering the risks that climate change poses for the biosphere
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and humanity any technology
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that has a chance of contributing to a solution should be pursued that's just good risk management and strategy
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if preventing rapid climate change as quickly as possible is our
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goal it might be a good idea to see nuclear
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and renewables not as opponents but as partners we know there's no time to waste
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so we should keep all of our low emission players on the field as things are both nuclear
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and renewables need innovation and investment but But if we don't know yet which technology will be ready how quickly, why not just invest in both and see what happens?
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And on the topic of current capacities, if we take nuclear energy offline right now, then that missing capacity will be replaced,
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at least partially, by fossil fuels.
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Even if new nuclear power plants in the West are expensive, in the long run it may be cheaper to build them
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as long as they prevent more fossil fuel capacity being added and paying for the consequences of rapid climate change.
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So, do we need nuclear energy?
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Well, it really depends how hard we choose to make things for ourselves.
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And in a world that's already having a really hard time quitting fossil fuels, why should we make things harder than necessary?

このレッスンの語彙とスピーキングのポイント

この動画には、シャドーイング用の文が91文、単語が1396語あります。 音声の長さは9:02です。 話す速さは1分あたり約155語で、日常会話に近い自然なペースです。 単語の84%は英語の頻出3,000語に含まれます。残りは練習の前に確認しておきましょう。

この動画の重要語彙

動画に出てくる覚えておきたい単語15語を、発音と意味つきで紹介します。

単語発音意味
fossil 名詞/ˈfɑsl̩/化石
renewable 形容詞/ɹɪˈnu.ə.bl̩/再生可能な
reactor 名詞/ɹiˈæktɚ/原子炉
transition 名詞/tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/遷移, 推移
rapid 形容詞/ˈɹæp.ɪd/速い, 急な
innovation 名詞/ˌɪn.əˈveɪ.ʃən/イノベーション, 革新
solve 動詞/sɒlv/解決する
humanity 名詞/hjuˈmænɪti/人類
invest 動詞/ɪnˈvɛst/投入する
grid 名詞/ɡɹɪd/格子, グリッド
activist 名詞/ˈæk.tɪ.vɪst/活動家
namely 副詞/ˈneɪmli/即ち, つまり
civilization 名詞/ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/文明
greenhouse 名詞/ˈɡɹːnˌ(h)aʊs/温室, ハウス
offline 形容詞/ɔfˈlaɪn/オフライン, 停止

動画に出てくる句動詞

単語意味
give up 動詞降服する
take over 動詞引き受ける

この動画の文法

話し手がよく使っている文型を、動画の実際の表現とともに紹介します。

文型動画での表現
受動態 be + 過去分詞 — 誰がするかより、何が起きるかに焦点を当てるwere released · is still generated · have not been deployed
現在完了形 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去の出来事が今も関係しているhave been · has become · have not been deployed
関係詞節 who / which + 節 — 人や物について情報を加えるthose who are · going, which means

注意したい発音

話し手はwe're, don't, doesn'tなど、短縮形や弱形を10回使っています。聞こえたとおりの短い形で発音しましょう。

  • 「sh」と「zh」の音: emission /ɪˈmɪʃ.ən/, transition /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/, innovation /ˌɪn.əˈveɪ.ʃən/, civilization /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, contrast /kənˈt(ʃ)ɹæst/
  • 長い単語(アクセントの位置に注意): electricity /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/, innovation /ˌɪn.əˈveɪ.ʃən/, humanity /hjuˈmænɪti/, civilization /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, primarily /ˈpɹaɪ.mə.ɹə.li/

この動画での練習方法

  1. まず声を出さずに動画を最後まで聞き、知らない単語をメモします。
  2. まず0.75倍速で一文ずつシャドーイングし、慣れてきたら通常の速度に戻します。
  3. 自分の声を録音して元の音声と比べます。fossil, renewable, reactorなどの単語に特に注意しましょう。

シャドーイングとは?英語上達に効果的な理由

シャドーイング(Shadowing)は、もともとプロの通訳者養成プログラムで開発された言語学習法で、多言語習得者として知られるDr. Alexander Arguelles によって広く普及されました。方法はシンプルですが非常に効果的:ネイティブスピーカーの英語を聞きながら、1〜2秒の遅延で声に出してすぐに繰り返す——まるで「影(shadow)」のように話者を追いかけます。文法ドリルや受動的なリスニングと異なり、シャドーイングは脳と口の筋肉が同時にリアルタイムで英語を処理・再現することを強制します。研究により、発音精度、抑揚、リズム、連音、リスニング力、そして会話の流暢さが大幅に向上することが確認されています。IELTSスピーキング対策や自然な英語コミュニケーションを目指す方に特におすすめです。

シャドーイングのやり方: ステップ別の完全ガイドを読む →