Prática de Shadowing: How to fix clean energy’s storage problem - Aprenda a falar inglês com vídeo

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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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Vocabulário e dicas de fala para esta lição

Esta aula de conversação usa o vídeo “How to fix clean energy’s storage problem”. As palavras que mais se repetem: energy, renewable, store, potential, pump. Este vídeo tem 72 frases e 1011 palavras para praticar shadowing. A fala dura 5:21. O falante fala rápido, cerca de 189 palavras por minuto, então espere sons ligados e reduzidos. Apenas 79% das palavras estão entre as 3.000 mais comuns do inglês, por isso o vocabulário é exigente.

Vocabulário principal deste vídeo

15 palavras do vídeo que vale a pena aprender, com pronúncia e significado:

PalavraPronúnciaSignificado
renewable adjetivo/ɹɪˈnu.ə.bl̩/renovável
pump substantivo/pʌmp/bomba
grid substantivo/ɡɹɪd/matriz, quadriculado
electricity substantivo/ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/eletricidade
lithium substantivo/ˈlɪθi.əm/lítio
gravity substantivo/ˈɡɹævɪti/gravidade
convert verbo/kənˈvɝt/converter, transformar
fossil substantivo/ˈfɑsl̩/fóssil
turbine substantivo/ˈtɜː.baɪn/turbina
efficient adjetivo/ɪˈfɪʃənt/eficiente
spin verbo/spɪn/girar, rodar
generate verbo/ˈd͡ʒɛn.ə.ɹeɪt/gerar
reservoir substantivo/ˈɹɛz.ə(ɹ).vwɑɹ/reservatório, barragem
rust substantivo/ɹʌst/ferrugem
technique substantivo/tɛkˈniːk/técnica

Phrasal verbs que você vai ouvir

PalavraSignificado
figure out verbodescobrir, deduzir

Gramática neste vídeo

As estruturas que o falante mais usa, com as palavras exatas do vídeo:

EstruturaNo vídeo
Voz passiva be + particípio passado — o foco está no que acontece, não em quem fazcan be stored · is only found · were built
Present perfect have/has + particípio passado — uma ação passada que ainda importa agorahave improved · that's actually been · has stored

Pronúncia para ficar de olho

O falante usa 10 contrações e formas reduzidas, como don't, isn't, you're. Diga-as na forma curta, do jeito que você ouve.

  • Os sons de “th”: lithium /ˈlɪθi.əm/, thermal /ˈθɜːməl/
  • Os sons de “sh” e “zh”: efficient /ɪˈfɪʃənt/, pressurize /ˈpɹɛʃəɹaɪz/
  • Palavras longas — acerte a sílaba tônica: electricity /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/, electronics /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɑ.nɪks/, importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/, inconvenience /ɪnkənˈvinjəns/, hydroelectric /ˌhʌɪdrəʊɪˈlɛktrɪk/

Sons difíceis para falantes de português:

  • Consoante final — sem acrescentar um “i” depois: pump /pʌmp/, grid /ɡɹɪd/, convert /kənˈvɝt/, efficient /ɪˈfɪʃənt/, generate /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ə.ɹeɪt/
  • /l/ final — a língua toca o céu da boca, não vira “u”: ideal /aɪˈdi(ə)l/, principle /ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pəl/, barrel /ˈbæɹəl/, thermal /ˈθɜːməl/, portable /ˈpɔɹtəbəl/
  • /h/ — um sopro suave, diferente do “r”: hydro /ˈhaɪdro/, haul /hɔl/, hydroelectric /ˌhʌɪdrəʊɪˈlɛktrɪk/

Como praticar com este vídeo

  1. Ouça o vídeo inteiro uma vez sem falar e anote as palavras que você não conhece.
  2. Comece na velocidade 0,75×, faça shadowing frase por frase e volte à velocidade normal quando ficar fácil.
  3. Grave a sua voz e compare com o original, prestando atenção a palavras como renewable, pump, grid.

O que é a Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing é uma técnica de aprendizado de idiomas com base científica, originalmente desenvolvida para o treinamento de intérpretes profissionais. O método é simples, mas poderoso: você ouve áudio em inglês nativo e repete imediatamente em voz alta — como uma sombra seguindo o falante com 1-2 segundos de atraso. Pesquisas mostram melhora significativa na precisão da pronúncia, entonação, ritmo, sons conectados, compreensão auditiva e fluência na fala.

Técnica de shadowing: leia o guia completo passo a passo →