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The evidence of a great green wave is now overwhelming.And it will only get better.能源绿色转型是大势所趋，前景可期。
全球目光聚焦于新冠疫情和政治角力，却忽视了乌云背后无可否认的一线光明：绿色低碳未来已然到来。如今，可再生能源的价格几乎毫无例外都比化石燃料生产的能源更为低廉。电动车电池组及太阳能电池板的价格持续暴跌，其应用则呈指数级增长。21世纪20年代将是划时代的十年，其间，地球将终结化石燃料破坏和污染生态环境的篇章，继而进入以清洁环保、成本低廉的能源发展新领域。而这会改变整个世界。
2能源绿色转型是大势所趋。彭博新能源财经调研显示，2020年，全世界总计花费5000亿美元用于可再生能源、电动汽车及其他清洁能源技术，这一投资所获回报远胜以往。电动车的核心部件锂离子电池组的平均成本从10年前超过1100美元/千瓦时降至2020年的不足140美元/千瓦时。
3随着日益扩大的市场使规模经济得以实现，可再生能源的价格将会持续降低，其应用范围将扩大。这将加速汽车产业向电动车和混合动力车转型，中国、欧洲和美国市场已经在发生这种变化。在德国，电动汽车（包括混合动力车、插电式混合动力车和纯电动车）的市场份额从2016年的不到3%激增至2020年的近25%。
4汽车电动化将会大大净化我们的空气。化石燃料发动机，尤其是柴油发动机，至今仍然是有害化学物质的主要排放源之一。美国肺脏协会2020年的一份报告显示，如果到2040年全面改用电动车，那么未来十年里，仅在美国一国便能“因交通污染显著减少，每年挽救约6300人的生命，避免9.3万多人罹患哮喘，挽回41.6万个T作日，从而节省720亿美元因健康损害造成的开支”。
5不像石油必须来自石油原料，电子就是电子，可以源自任何物质。（当然，人们也能采用更低碳环保的方式生产化石燃料，比如养殖藻类。然而，电推进技术能根绝碳排放问题。）日益低廉的电池组价格使得电动汽车和混合动力汽车的保有和使用成本比传统燃油车要低。
6这是顺理成章的。不仅因为电力比汽油的价格低廉得多，而且混合动力车和电动车的维护成本也要低些。这些新能源车的基本构件是与电动机相连的一组电池，活动部件和复杂系统也少得多。
7这些新能源车及其车载电池的电力供应越来越多地依靠可再生能源，主要是太阳能和风能。过去40年间，太阳能的成本断崖式地下跌了99%。太阳能电池板本质上就是半导体，因此其成本走势与计算机半导体基本一致。太阳能的最终价格将非常低廉，主要成本将是通过电线将太阳能输送至居民家庭及企业的传输成本。
8一旦这成为现实，将彻底改变众多电力密集型产业的格局。举例而言，目前大多数玻璃、混凝土和钢材的生产使用的是化石燃料高溫熔炉。随着电力价格下跌，这些产业将会转而采用电熔炉，所需设备和工业厂房的成本随之下降，生产对环境造成的污染也将大幅减少。英国智库查塔姆研究所调查显示，仅混凝土生产一项就占每年碳排放总量的8%左右。
9也许对绿色未来而言更重要的是水。世界许多地区都面临淡水稀缺的困境，而廉价电力可以轻松解决这一问题。采用反渗透技术大规模净化海水的首要障碍在于净化过程中的能量强度无法达到要求。海水资源丰富且容易获取，而低成本的电能则可以将其转化为饮用水。即使远离电网设施的小型社区也能利用业已普及的太阳能发电技术实施海水净化项目。
10直到最近，天然气和其他化石燃料在发电领域还占有一定优势，在可再生能源无法提供电力时，比如在没有阳光或无风的时候，这些传统能源能够保障电力供应。然而，随着电池价格的急速下跌，一种具有成本效益的能源供应方案——可再生能源发电和蓄电池储能技术相结合——变得廉价而高效.足以替代使用化石燃料的基荷发电。
11清洁能源亦将对全球产生深远的影响。曾几何时，无线通信技术曾使发展中国家在电信基础设施领域迅速赶上乃至超越富裕国家。清洁能源将同样成为促进经济公平的巨大推动力量。绿色能源日益下跌的成本及其生产模式的内在灵活性会使印度和非洲有望在不久的未来在能源生产领域与西方相媲美。随之而来的区域利益将不仅仅局限在经济层面。例如，利用清洁能源还新德里一片蓝天，将使空气更加适宜呼吸，减少致病隐患，延长城市居民的寿命。
12更广范围的经济变革及基础设施改造正蓄力待发。以美国加利福尼亚州为例，该州完全可以使用众多小型设施，将能源生产和储存化整为零，使电力系统在应对野火及其他灾变时更具弹性，减少对远程设施及维护成本高昂的电力传输网络的依赖。又或者，我们可以在尘土飞扬的广袤沙漠，比如美国加利福尼亚州西南部的莫哈韦沙漠和非洲撒哈拉沙漠中建起足以让当今所有电厂相形见绌的大型太阳能电场。由于发电和储能并不需要在同一地理位置，这些太阳能电场可以把电供给分布式备用电池设施网络，或采用其他储能机制的系统，如压缩空气蓄能电站或抽水蓄能电站。在早期阶段，也许只有富裕些的国家才能够运用此类储能技术，但其成本急剧下降，预示这项技术有望实现全球普及，就像智能手机和在线存储一样。
13在我们有生之年，依靠化石燃料驱动的交通工具将退出历史舞台，以煤炭或天然气为燃料的发电厂也将停止向天空排放废气。当我们与未来的孙辈们交谈时，我们则可以将这十年称之为扭转乾坤的阶段，从此地球迎来了前景无限的绿色未来。
（译者为“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛获奖者;单位：成都大学）
Its attention consumed by pandemicsand politics， the world has overlookedan undeniable silver lining： thearrival of the green future. Almost withoutexception， renewable energy is nowcheaper than that produced from fossilfuels. Prices of battery packs for electricvehicles and solar panels continueto plunge， and adoption is increasingexponentially. The 2020s will be the decadein which the planet finally closesthe chapter on destruction and pollutionby fossil fuels and enters a new realm ofclean and nearly free energy. And thischanges everything. 2 The evidence of a great green waveis now overwhelming. According toBloombergNEF， in 2020 the worldspent half a trillion dollars on renewablepower， electric vehicles， and otherclean technologies and got a lot more for this investment than it ever usedto. The average cost of lithium-ionbattery packs， critical to electric vehicles，plunged from more than $1，100per kilowatt-hour a decade ago to below$140 in 2020.
3 As the expanding market enableseconomies of scale， prices will continueto fall， and renewable energy adoptionwill increase. This will also acceleratethe move to electric and hybridvehicles， as is already occurring inChina， Europe， and the United States.In Germany， the share of vehicles thatuse electricity （hybrids， plug-in hybrids，and fully electric vehicles） soared fromless than 3 percent in 2016 to nearly 25percent in 2020.
4 The shift to electric vehicles will dramaticallyclean our air. Fossil fuel-burningengines—diesel engines especially—remain some of the primary emitters ofharmful chemicals. A 2020 report by theAmerican Lung Association found that acomplete switchover to electric vehiclesby 2040 would， in the next decade， contributeto “$72 billion in avoided healthharms， saving approximately 6，300 livesand avoiding more than 93，000 asthmaattacks and 416，000 lost work days annuallydue to significant reductions intransportation-related pollution” in theUnited States alone.
5 Unlike petroleum， which necessarilycomes from petroleum oil， an electron is an electron and can come from anywhere.（And， yes， you can manufacturefossil fuels in a greener way， by usingalgae， for example， but electric propulsioncan eliminate the carbon emissionproblem entirely.） The declining priceof battery packs has now made electricand hybrid cars cheaper to own and operatethan traditional cars.
6 This is logical. Not only do you paya lot less for electricity than for gas， buthybrid and electric vehicles also tend tohave lower maintenance costs. They areessentially a battery pack attached to anelectric motor， with vastly fewer movingparts and fewer complex systems.
7 Powering these cars and their batteriesis an electricity supply that includesa rapidly growing share generated fromrenewable sources， primarily solar andwind. The cost of solar energy has declinedby a whopping 99 percent overthe past four decades. Solar panels are，essentially， semiconductors， so theircost curves are basically the same asthose that apply to computers. The endstate of the solar energy price declinewill be energy so cheap that its majorcost will be that of transmitting it overwires to our homes and businesses. 8 Once this happens， many powerintensiveindustries will be disrupted.For example， at present， the productionof glass， concrete， and steel mostlyrelies on high-temperature fossil fuel furnaces. As electricity prices fall andthose industries make the switch toelectrical furnaces， the cost of the requiredequipment and industrial plantsshould fall， and production will becomeenvironmentally far cleaner. Concreteproduction， to name one example， isresponsible for roughly 8 percent of allcarbon emitted each year， according toChatham House.
9 Perhaps even more crucial to thegreen future is water. Many regions ofthe world lack sufficient fresh water， butcheap electricity can readily solve theproblem. The primary barrier to purificationof seawater using reverse osmosisat scale is its energy intensity. Seawateris abundant and readily available， andlow-cost electrical energy will turn it intopotable1 water. The ubiquity of solar-generatedelectricity will also enable waterpurification projects even in tiny communitiesthat are far from any power grid.
10 Until recently， power generationfrom natural gas and other fossil fuelshad an edge in that it could supply energyeven when renewables could not：when the sun didn’t shine or the air wasstill. But batteries’ rapid price declinehas finally made the combination ofrenewable energy and battery storagecheap and efficient enough to providea cost-effective alternative to baseloadgeneration using fossil fuels.
11 The international implications ofclean energy are likewise promising.Just as wireless communication technologyallowed the developing world toquickly catch up with and even leapfrogrich nations in telecommunications infrastructure，green energy will serve as agreat economic leveler. Green energy’sfalling cost and the inherent flexibilityof its production modes will soon allowIndia and Africa to match the West inenergy generation. The consequent regionalbenefits will not be merely economic.By helping to clean up the skiesof New Delhi， for example， green energywill make the air more breathable，reduce health burdens， and add years tothe lives of the city’s inhabitants.
12 Larger economic and infrastructurechanges may be on the horizon. California，for example， could well fractureenergy generation and storage into numeroussmaller installations to makethe electricity system more resilient—less reliant on distant facilities and highmaintenancetransmission infrastructure—in the face of wildfires and othercatastrophes. Alternatively， we may seeextensive solar energy farms in vastdusty deserts such as the Mojave and theSahara that dwarf today’s power plants.Because storage and generation needn’tcoincide geographically， these farmscould supply to distributed networks ofbackup battery facilities or to schemesusing other storage mechanisms， suchas compressed air or water pumped uphillfor later hydroelectric generation.Though such energy backups may initiallybe limited to richer nations， theirsteeply falling costs bode well for massadoption by all， just as happened withsmartphones and online storage.
13 In our lifetimes， fossil fuel vehicleswill become extinct， and the smokestacksof electricity plants powered bycoal or gas will cease to emit their filth.When we talk to our future grandchildren，we will be able to refer to thisdecade as the one in which the switchflipped and the planet adopted a tremendouslypromising green future.
全球目光聚焦于新冠疫情和政治角力，却忽视了乌云背后无可否认的一线光明：绿色低碳未来已然到来。如今，可再生能源的价格几乎毫无例外都比化石燃料生产的能源更为低廉。电动车电池组及太阳能电池板的价格持续暴跌，其应用则呈指数级增长。21世纪20年代将是划时代的十年，其间，地球将终结化石燃料破坏和污染生态环境的篇章，继而进入以清洁环保、成本低廉的能源发展新领域。而这会改变整个世界。
2能源绿色转型是大势所趋。彭博新能源财经调研显示，2020年，全世界总计花费5000亿美元用于可再生能源、电动汽车及其他清洁能源技术，这一投资所获回报远胜以往。电动车的核心部件锂离子电池组的平均成本从10年前超过1100美元/千瓦时降至2020年的不足140美元/千瓦时。
3随着日益扩大的市场使规模经济得以实现，可再生能源的价格将会持续降低，其应用范围将扩大。这将加速汽车产业向电动车和混合动力车转型，中国、欧洲和美国市场已经在发生这种变化。在德国，电动汽车（包括混合动力车、插电式混合动力车和纯电动车）的市场份额从2016年的不到3%激增至2020年的近25%。
4汽车电动化将会大大净化我们的空气。化石燃料发动机，尤其是柴油发动机，至今仍然是有害化学物质的主要排放源之一。美国肺脏协会2020年的一份报告显示，如果到2040年全面改用电动车，那么未来十年里，仅在美国一国便能“因交通污染显著减少，每年挽救约6300人的生命，避免9.3万多人罹患哮喘，挽回41.6万个T作日，从而节省720亿美元因健康损害造成的开支”。
5不像石油必须来自石油原料，电子就是电子，可以源自任何物质。（当然，人们也能采用更低碳环保的方式生产化石燃料，比如养殖藻类。然而，电推进技术能根绝碳排放问题。）日益低廉的电池组价格使得电动汽车和混合动力汽车的保有和使用成本比传统燃油车要低。
6这是顺理成章的。不仅因为电力比汽油的价格低廉得多，而且混合动力车和电动车的维护成本也要低些。这些新能源车的基本构件是与电动机相连的一组电池，活动部件和复杂系统也少得多。
7这些新能源车及其车载电池的电力供应越来越多地依靠可再生能源，主要是太阳能和风能。过去40年间，太阳能的成本断崖式地下跌了99%。太阳能电池板本质上就是半导体，因此其成本走势与计算机半导体基本一致。太阳能的最终价格将非常低廉，主要成本将是通过电线将太阳能输送至居民家庭及企业的传输成本。
8一旦这成为现实，将彻底改变众多电力密集型产业的格局。举例而言，目前大多数玻璃、混凝土和钢材的生产使用的是化石燃料高溫熔炉。随着电力价格下跌，这些产业将会转而采用电熔炉，所需设备和工业厂房的成本随之下降，生产对环境造成的污染也将大幅减少。英国智库查塔姆研究所调查显示，仅混凝土生产一项就占每年碳排放总量的8%左右。
9也许对绿色未来而言更重要的是水。世界许多地区都面临淡水稀缺的困境，而廉价电力可以轻松解决这一问题。采用反渗透技术大规模净化海水的首要障碍在于净化过程中的能量强度无法达到要求。海水资源丰富且容易获取，而低成本的电能则可以将其转化为饮用水。即使远离电网设施的小型社区也能利用业已普及的太阳能发电技术实施海水净化项目。
10直到最近，天然气和其他化石燃料在发电领域还占有一定优势，在可再生能源无法提供电力时，比如在没有阳光或无风的时候，这些传统能源能够保障电力供应。然而，随着电池价格的急速下跌，一种具有成本效益的能源供应方案——可再生能源发电和蓄电池储能技术相结合——变得廉价而高效.足以替代使用化石燃料的基荷发电。
11清洁能源亦将对全球产生深远的影响。曾几何时，无线通信技术曾使发展中国家在电信基础设施领域迅速赶上乃至超越富裕国家。清洁能源将同样成为促进经济公平的巨大推动力量。绿色能源日益下跌的成本及其生产模式的内在灵活性会使印度和非洲有望在不久的未来在能源生产领域与西方相媲美。随之而来的区域利益将不仅仅局限在经济层面。例如，利用清洁能源还新德里一片蓝天，将使空气更加适宜呼吸，减少致病隐患，延长城市居民的寿命。
12更广范围的经济变革及基础设施改造正蓄力待发。以美国加利福尼亚州为例，该州完全可以使用众多小型设施，将能源生产和储存化整为零，使电力系统在应对野火及其他灾变时更具弹性，减少对远程设施及维护成本高昂的电力传输网络的依赖。又或者，我们可以在尘土飞扬的广袤沙漠，比如美国加利福尼亚州西南部的莫哈韦沙漠和非洲撒哈拉沙漠中建起足以让当今所有电厂相形见绌的大型太阳能电场。由于发电和储能并不需要在同一地理位置，这些太阳能电场可以把电供给分布式备用电池设施网络，或采用其他储能机制的系统，如压缩空气蓄能电站或抽水蓄能电站。在早期阶段，也许只有富裕些的国家才能够运用此类储能技术，但其成本急剧下降，预示这项技术有望实现全球普及，就像智能手机和在线存储一样。
13在我们有生之年，依靠化石燃料驱动的交通工具将退出历史舞台，以煤炭或天然气为燃料的发电厂也将停止向天空排放废气。当我们与未来的孙辈们交谈时，我们则可以将这十年称之为扭转乾坤的阶段，从此地球迎来了前景无限的绿色未来。
（译者为“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛获奖者;单位：成都大学）
Its attention consumed by pandemicsand politics， the world has overlookedan undeniable silver lining： thearrival of the green future. Almost withoutexception， renewable energy is nowcheaper than that produced from fossilfuels. Prices of battery packs for electricvehicles and solar panels continueto plunge， and adoption is increasingexponentially. The 2020s will be the decadein which the planet finally closesthe chapter on destruction and pollutionby fossil fuels and enters a new realm ofclean and nearly free energy. And thischanges everything. 2 The evidence of a great green waveis now overwhelming. According toBloombergNEF， in 2020 the worldspent half a trillion dollars on renewablepower， electric vehicles， and otherclean technologies and got a lot more for this investment than it ever usedto. The average cost of lithium-ionbattery packs， critical to electric vehicles，plunged from more than $1，100per kilowatt-hour a decade ago to below$140 in 2020.
3 As the expanding market enableseconomies of scale， prices will continueto fall， and renewable energy adoptionwill increase. This will also acceleratethe move to electric and hybridvehicles， as is already occurring inChina， Europe， and the United States.In Germany， the share of vehicles thatuse electricity （hybrids， plug-in hybrids，and fully electric vehicles） soared fromless than 3 percent in 2016 to nearly 25percent in 2020.
4 The shift to electric vehicles will dramaticallyclean our air. Fossil fuel-burningengines—diesel engines especially—remain some of the primary emitters ofharmful chemicals. A 2020 report by theAmerican Lung Association found that acomplete switchover to electric vehiclesby 2040 would， in the next decade， contributeto “$72 billion in avoided healthharms， saving approximately 6，300 livesand avoiding more than 93，000 asthmaattacks and 416，000 lost work days annuallydue to significant reductions intransportation-related pollution” in theUnited States alone.
5 Unlike petroleum， which necessarilycomes from petroleum oil， an electron is an electron and can come from anywhere.（And， yes， you can manufacturefossil fuels in a greener way， by usingalgae， for example， but electric propulsioncan eliminate the carbon emissionproblem entirely.） The declining priceof battery packs has now made electricand hybrid cars cheaper to own and operatethan traditional cars.
6 This is logical. Not only do you paya lot less for electricity than for gas， buthybrid and electric vehicles also tend tohave lower maintenance costs. They areessentially a battery pack attached to anelectric motor， with vastly fewer movingparts and fewer complex systems.
7 Powering these cars and their batteriesis an electricity supply that includesa rapidly growing share generated fromrenewable sources， primarily solar andwind. The cost of solar energy has declinedby a whopping 99 percent overthe past four decades. Solar panels are，essentially， semiconductors， so theircost curves are basically the same asthose that apply to computers. The endstate of the solar energy price declinewill be energy so cheap that its majorcost will be that of transmitting it overwires to our homes and businesses. 8 Once this happens， many powerintensiveindustries will be disrupted.For example， at present， the productionof glass， concrete， and steel mostlyrelies on high-temperature fossil fuel furnaces. As electricity prices fall andthose industries make the switch toelectrical furnaces， the cost of the requiredequipment and industrial plantsshould fall， and production will becomeenvironmentally far cleaner. Concreteproduction， to name one example， isresponsible for roughly 8 percent of allcarbon emitted each year， according toChatham House.
9 Perhaps even more crucial to thegreen future is water. Many regions ofthe world lack sufficient fresh water， butcheap electricity can readily solve theproblem. The primary barrier to purificationof seawater using reverse osmosisat scale is its energy intensity. Seawateris abundant and readily available， andlow-cost electrical energy will turn it intopotable1 water. The ubiquity of solar-generatedelectricity will also enable waterpurification projects even in tiny communitiesthat are far from any power grid.
10 Until recently， power generationfrom natural gas and other fossil fuelshad an edge in that it could supply energyeven when renewables could not：when the sun didn’t shine or the air wasstill. But batteries’ rapid price declinehas finally made the combination ofrenewable energy and battery storagecheap and efficient enough to providea cost-effective alternative to baseloadgeneration using fossil fuels.
11 The international implications ofclean energy are likewise promising.Just as wireless communication technologyallowed the developing world toquickly catch up with and even leapfrogrich nations in telecommunications infrastructure，green energy will serve as agreat economic leveler. Green energy’sfalling cost and the inherent flexibilityof its production modes will soon allowIndia and Africa to match the West inenergy generation. The consequent regionalbenefits will not be merely economic.By helping to clean up the skiesof New Delhi， for example， green energywill make the air more breathable，reduce health burdens， and add years tothe lives of the city’s inhabitants.
12 Larger economic and infrastructurechanges may be on the horizon. California，for example， could well fractureenergy generation and storage into numeroussmaller installations to makethe electricity system more resilient—less reliant on distant facilities and highmaintenancetransmission infrastructure—in the face of wildfires and othercatastrophes. Alternatively， we may seeextensive solar energy farms in vastdusty deserts such as the Mojave and theSahara that dwarf today’s power plants.Because storage and generation needn’tcoincide geographically， these farmscould supply to distributed networks ofbackup battery facilities or to schemesusing other storage mechanisms， suchas compressed air or water pumped uphillfor later hydroelectric generation.Though such energy backups may initiallybe limited to richer nations， theirsteeply falling costs bode well for massadoption by all， just as happened withsmartphones and online storage.
13 In our lifetimes， fossil fuel vehicleswill become extinct， and the smokestacksof electricity plants powered bycoal or gas will cease to emit their filth.When we talk to our future grandchildren，we will be able to refer to thisdecade as the one in which the switchflipped and the planet adopted a tremendouslypromising green future.