English Listening Exercise

Wind farms on the bog of Ireland could provide UK electricity

Company behind the £5bn proposals hopes to build more than 700 turbines and transport power in cables beneath Irish Sea

Ed Davey, the secretary of state for energy and climate change, is considering the proposals. Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters

Hundreds of wind farms could be built on the great bog of Ireland to generate electricity exclusively for the UK's national grid under plans being considered by ministers.
Element Power, the company behind the £5 billion proposals, hopes to build more than 700 turbines and transport power through two dedicated undersea cables across the Irish sea.
Company executives met Ed Davey, the cabinet minister in charge of climate change, and civil servants to discuss the plans this summer.
The plans have been discussed among the coalition and appear in theory to appease both political parties. Liberal Democrats wish for an increase in green energy but have concerns over the high price of building wind farms offshore. Conservative ministers are worried about the backlash in some rural communities as wind turbines have become more common in Britain.
To proceed, the Irish project would need access to the subsidies currently given to UK wind power, but the difficulty for ministers in setting a precedent – which could mean any foreign energy projects can get UK subsidies – means the project face major challenges.
Mike O'Neill, the president of Element Power, said the project would solve a number of thorny problems for the British government. "Our experience is that it is easier to get planning permission in the Republic of Ireland, if you do it in a sensible and sensitive way," he said.
Britain's electricity suppliers are obliged to provide an increasing percentage of their electricity from renewable sources, to help the UK meet its legally binding targets for cutting the carbon emissions that drive climate change.
Costs for onshore wind power are currently estimated to be half that of offshore wind power. Element Power claims its project, entitled Greenwire, will provide electricity at two-thirds of the cost of building a big offshore wind farm, which will reduce the amount that needs to be charged to the UK consumer by £7 billion over 15 years.
The company says its proposed investment would be €8 billion – two-thirds for the wind turbines and a third for the two big sub-sea cables that would take the electricity to the UK. It says the project could provide 3GW of electricity capacity and employ thousands of workers.
O'Neill said the project could start generating power from 2018, if the subsidy obstacle could be overcome. Another hold-up were the delays in the government setting the actual level of the subsidy, so the project can proceed. O'Neill said energy company EDF was getting special treatment from the government over the price that will be guaranteed for nuclear power and that Greenwire should get the same.
There are more than 1,100 turbines in operation in Ireland, mostly at 176 onshore windfarms with a further seven offshore. Element Power hopes to expand in Meath, Westmeath, Kildare, Laois and Offaly but says that its project will not prevent the Republic of Ireland meeting its own carbon target of a 40% cut by 2020.
Coalition tensions over green issues have increased since September's reshuffle. Owen Paterson, who has campaigned against wind farms in his own constituency, is believed to have clashed with Davey, the Lib Dem secretary of state for energy and climate change.
Davey appeared to see off Conservative ministers' attempts to slash the subsidies for onshore wind farms, instead sticking with a smaller cut previously agreed with the industry.
The row began after more than 100 Conservative backbenchers wrote to the prime minister earlier this year demanding he "dramatically cut" the £400m in annual subsidies paid to onshore wind developers.
The energy secretary said the new changes to subsidies for renewables, which also include reducing offshore wind payments and more than doubling support for tidal, stream and wave power, would boost clean electricity while curbing the cost to consumers.

Venezuela Hugo Chávez is re-elected in Venezuela

 Hugo Chávez celebrates at Miraflores Palace in Caracas after winning re-election.

 Venezuelan president retains power after 14 years in office, recording 54.5% of the vote against rival Henrique Capriles

Venezuela's Hugo Chávez has once again defied his doubters by winning a new term of office in the presidential election after what had been billed as the closest race of his political life.
To the euphoria of supporters in and around his campaign headquarters, the National Electoral Council announced on Sunday the president had secured 54.4% of the votes, while his rival Capriles was behind with 44.9%. Some votes were still to be counted, but the council said the result was not in doubt.
Pumping his fist in the air, Chávez address his supporters from the balcony of the presidential palace as a barrage of fireworks lit up the sky. "The revolution has triumphed!" Chávez told the crowd, saying his supporters "voted for socialism."
"Today we've shown that Venezuela's democracy is one of the best democracies in the world, and we will continue to show it," he shouted, waving a replica of Símon Bolivar sword.
As the result was announced, his supporters burst into cheers and songs of "Viva Le Patria" and "Ooh Aah, Chávez won't go."
"I'm crying with joy," said Alirio Guevara, a fisherman from Vargas, who came to Caracas to vote and joined the joyous crowds at the Chávez campaign headquarters. "In the next six years, we will deepen the revolution."
In accepting defeat, Capriles took solace in picking up more votes than any previous challenger and restricting Chávez to a single-digit margin of victory.
"In order to win, one must know how to lose. For me the people's voices are sacred. For those who feel sad, I tell them, 'we started to build a road and there it is'. We have 6 million people who want a new road."
Underlining the intense interest in the campaign, the turnout among the 19 million registered voters was a record 80.4%.
Many analysts had warned that a slim margin of victory could lead to violence, but with an almost double-digit gap there was no immediate indication of unrest on Sunday evening.
Venezuelans had queued under the sun for up to five hours to cast their vote amid expectations of a possible change, prompted by vastly contrasting opinion surveys in the weeks before the poll.
After the result was announced, Chávez tweeted: "Thank you, my God. Thanks to everyone. Thanks my beloved people!!! Viva Venezuela!!!! Viva Bolivar!!!!!"
Chávez has held on to power for more than a decade despite an attempted coup, a nationwide oil strike and a yearlong fight with cancer, which may not be over.
With many voters unhappy at one of the world's highest murder rates and crumbling infrastructure, his party had lost ground in recent legislative elections and his long illness had clearly restricted his campaign appearances, particularly in contrast to his 40-year-old rival who was making two stops a day in a energetic campaign that criss-crossed the country.
The opposition had felt this was their best chance to regain power, but the president ended strongly with a giant rally of hundreds of thousands of supporters in Caracas on the final day of the campaign on Thursday.
On the campaign trail, president Chávez vowed that if re-elected he would use the next six years to correct past mistakes, to continue to build a socialist alternative to the capitalist model, and to continue using the country's vast oil revenues to redistribute wealth, promote the revolution overseas and to bolster ideological allies such as Cuba and Nicaragua.
But analysts say his reduced margin of victory – down from 26% in 2006 and 16% in 1998 – may prompt changes in the cabinet and the government's policy, particularly with regard to public security and the economy. Health concerns are also likely to linger.

Scents and sensibility Turtles love a smell that humans loathe. For them, it means “dinner”

 



JELLYFISH may not be most people’s idea of a tasty snack, but if you are a loggerhead turtle, they are top of the menu. Though jellyfish can swim, they are not exactly the greyhounds of the ocean, so they are easily caught. And since munching a large jellyfish can keep a turtle going for days, loggerheads love them when they can find them.

The best place to do so is in an upwelling zone. This is an area where the wind’s action draws cold, nutrient-rich water to the surface. That encourages the growth of planktonic algae, and thus of everything that feeds on such plankton, or feeds on what feeds on them—including jellyfish, and also various molluscs and crustacea that loggerheads enjoy as an appetiser. And upwelling zones do, indeed, attract turtles. But nobody knows how, for such zones are scattered, local and often temporary phenomena, and locating them in the wide expanse of the sea is hard.

Courtney Endres, a biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, however, thought the reptiles might be smelling such zones from afar. She knew from an experiment she conducted a few years ago that loggerheads have a good sense of smell. She also knew, because passing sailors frequently comment on the fact, that upwelling zones tend to stink.
Specifically, they stink of cabbages. That is because many planktonic algae, when crunched up during the process of being eaten, release a substance called dimethylsulphoniopropionate. This quickly degrades into another chemical, dimethyl sulphide, which generations of those subjected to unimaginative school lunches will instantly recognise. But to loggerheads it is the smell of a banquet.
Ms Endres and her colleague Kenneth Lohmann showed this by collecting 11 loggerhead hatchlings from local beaches and testing them to see which smells most interested them. The young turtles (which were released back into the wild after their ordeal) were each put in a tank of seawater that had various scents blown across its surface. These included cinnamon, jasmine, lemon—and dimethyl sulphide.

When a turtle came up for air (which, being air-breathing creatures, they have to do regularly), the researchers recorded how long it sniffed around. They found, as they report in Experimental Biology, that the animals spent an average of five seconds breathing air scented with lemon, jasmine or cinnamon, all pleasant odours from a human point of view. That was no different from the amount of time they spent at the surface when no scent was used at all. When the air was scented with dimethyl sulphide, however, they spent an average of ten seconds breathing in the (from a human point of view) stinky scent of cabbages—or upwellings.

That does not prove that loggerheads smell their way to the table, of course. But it makes the hypothesis plausible. For turtles, it seems, the perfumes of Araby hold little charm. The scent of cabbages, by contrast, is as attractive as the odour of roasting chicken is to a hungry human.

Mitt Romney comes out on top as Obama stumbles in first debate

Republican candidate lifts conservative morale with a strong and forceful performance against a passive, lacklustre Obama.

Mitt Romney raised Republican hopes of an election comeback with a spirited and aggressive performance that forced Barack Obama repeatedly on to the defensive in the first presidential debate
Although Romney is still trailing badly in the polls, especially in the crucial swing states, his strong showing lifted conservative morale with more than four weeks left to turn the campaign around.
The two sparred mainly over the economy, in particular tax, jobs and healthcare, during a statistic- and policy-laden, 90-minute debate that was expected to draw an audience of more than 50 million.
Romney was forceful from the start, accusing Obama of repeatedly portraying the Republican's policies as inaccurate, and he maintained that momentum throughout. Obama, looking tired and at times irritated, remained largely calm.
In the spin room afterwards, Romney's campaign team hailed it as a victory. Eric Fehrnstrom, the campaign spokesman, could not contain his glee.
"Governor Romney clearly won," he said. "If this was a boxing match, the referee would have stopped it." He predicted it would be a close race.
David Plouffe, one of the architects of Obama's victory in 2008 and a senior member of his campaign this year, was subdued. "We are going to come out of this debate OK," he said, adding that the Romney team had needed a game-changer and this was not one.
Another of Obama's campaign team, Stephanie Cutter, insisted Obama had won the debate on substance but, unusually for this tough spokeswoman who normally gives little ground, she admitted Romney had won on style and preparation.
A CNN flash poll of registered voters had 67% saying Romney had won it, while just 25% gave it to Obama.
One of Bill Clinton's best-known strategists, James Carville, told CNN he had been left with "one overwhelming impression … It looked like Romney wanted to be there and President Obama didn't want to be there … It gave you the impression that this whole thing was a lot of trouble."
Romney needed a good night after being confronted with setback after setback over the last two months that have left him behind Obama in the polls. While Obama remains favourite to secure re-election on 6 November, Romney may at least have stopped his gradual downward slide.

The first of the clashes came over the economy, with Obama asking how Romney was simultaneously going to cut the country's burgeoning deficit while at the same time cutting $5tn in taxes for the wealthy, extending Bush-era tax cuts and raising military spending, a total of $8m.
Romney just flat-out denied it. In the tone he maintained most of the night, he said: "I think first of all, let me – let me repeat – let me repeat what I said. I'm not in favour of a $5tn tax cut. That's not my plan … So you may keep referring to it as a $5tn tax cut, but that's not my plan."
Obama, seemingly frustrated with Romney's elusiveness, retorted that it had been his opponent's plan for 18 months. "And now, five weeks before the election, he's saying that his big, bold idea is: 'Never mind'".
At times, Romney patronised the president, saying that he did not understand business or accountancy. "Mr President, you're entitled to your own airplane and your own house, but not your own facts," he said at one point. In another powerful attack which is at the core of the Romney message, he listed unkept promises and told Obama: "You've been president for four years."
The president, by contrast, was hesitant in his responses. One of the biggest surprises was that he failed to deliver any of the attacks that have been successful on the campaign trail and have been used to devastating effect in television ads in swing states. There was no mention of Romney's disparaging remarks about the 47% of the population being freeloaders, nor of his opponent's tenure at Bain Capital.
The main image of the night will be of Romney, eyes alight, gesticulating from the podium with a rarely seen passion, while Obama, playing into his image as professorial, delivered most of his answers with his head down.
Romney did not raise the killings of the US ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans, which is an emotive issue. Although the debate was meant to be devoted to domestic policy, there had been speculation he might attempt to slip it in.
On healthcare reform, Obama defended his controversial changes to expand coverage, saying it was almost identical to changes introduced by Romney while he was governor of Massachusetts.
Romney denied they were identical, claimed Obama's plan increased costs and reiterated that he would repeal the reform.
"In my opinion, the government is not effective in bringing down the cost of almost anything. The right answer is not to have the federal government take over healthcare,'' Romney said.
Both candidates hit the campaign trail again on Thursday, with Obama holding rallies in Colorado and Wisconsin and Romney in Virginia. It was not a disastrous night for Obama. That calm, measured approach is part of the reason many Democrats like him and it may appeal to independents too.
Most debates have little impact on the eventual outcome but there have been exceptions, such as the one in 1960 and that between Al Gore and George Bush junior in 2000. While this one will not go down as a comparable game-changer, it will at least change the growing perception of Romney as a loser, even if only temporarily.

New school building designs hit by curve ban

 

The rules seem targeted to prevent new schools being designed by award-winning architects, such as Mossbourne Community academy was by Richard Rogers. Photograph: Dan Chung for the Guardian

Curves are to be banned in a new generation of no-frills school buildings, according to a government crackdown on what it believes is wasteful extravagance in educational architecture.
Design templates unveiled for 261 replacement school buildings also prohibit folding internal partitions to subdivide classrooms, roof terraces that can be used as play areas, glazed walls and translucent plastic roofs.

The templates were published on Monday to allow architects and builders bidding for £2.5bn of contracts on new school buildings to understand what the government expects from smaller and cheaper schools. The government is planning to replace the primary and secondary schools it has deemed to be in the worst condition as part of a five-year programme.

On Monday the Guardian revealed that the new schools would be 15% smaller than those built under the previous government, squeezing space for corridors, assembly halls and canteens. It is part of a plan by the education secretary, Michael Gove, to cut school building costs by 30% and save up to £6m per school compared to Labour's Building Schools for the Future project.
The templates tell architects new schools should have "no curves or 'faceted' curves", corners should be square, ceilings should be left bare and buildings should be clad in nothing more expensive than render or metal panels above head height. As much repetition as possible should be used to keep costs down.

"A standardised approach should be taken, with the aim of creating simple designs that have the potential to be replicated on a number of sites," the templates state. "This may be achieved by using standardised dimensions for similar types of spaces that are integrated into an efficient planning and structural grid."

The prohibitions and prescriptions seem targeted to prevent the schools being designed by architects such as Lord Foster and Dame Zaha Hadid who have won prizes for school designs that employed irregular curves and shapes and innovative materials, but have been criticised for spending too much.
Gove last year told a conference on free schools: "We won't be getting Richard Rogers to design your school, we won't be getting any award-winning architects to design it, because no one in this room is here to make architects richer."
Peter Clegg, a partner at Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios which has designed more than a dozen schools, said: "It is extraordinarily over-prescriptive and it shows an extreme lack of trust in the architectural and construction professions to deliver schools to budget.

"Why are they not just telling us how much they want to pay per square metre? I can understand them wanting to turn the screw on the budget, but why do they not give architects who understand these things the ability to decide."
He said bans on materials such as the ETFE plastic used as a roofing material on the Eden Project did not make sense as it was often a cost-effective way to bring light into a building and was cheaper than glass.

The Department for Education said: "Compared to BSF these designs represent a reduction in wasted space – 15% for secondary and 5% for primary schools – whilst maintaining the same size teaching space, classrooms, staffrooms, sport, and art and design facilities. These new schools will still be bigger than secondary schools built in 2004 and primaries built in 2006."
Guidance in the templates includes: "basic specification solid core doors; no folding partitions; basic stair and balustrading finishes; fair faced concrete soffits ... no internal CCTV other than to the main entrance; reduced lighting specifications".

Mike Green, director of capital at the government's Education Funding Agency, said: "These designs will ensure that new schools can be built to effective designs and specifications, be simple to maintain and energy efficient. And they can be built far faster than many have previously, and for far less money.

"Ultimately they will enable as many schools as possible to receive investment from the funding available and deliver an excellent environment for the children and communities they serve."

Britishisms in American English? Brilliant!

The British are coming! The British are coming! For decades, you British have been kvetching (or as you might say, "whingeing") about the way we Yanks have been spritzing our two cents plain ("sparkling water" to you) American argot into the limpid, lambent loveliness of the Queen's English.
And though I generally try not to be "chippy" about the widely held view that my countrymen and women are bunch of rubes and yahoos – on display most recently in Downton Abbey, where Shirley MacLaine's caricature of a rich American finally drove me out of the room with annoyance – whenever I am asked to assent to the proposition that American influence is driving the English language to hell in a handbasket, my response is: get over it!
Well, that's the polite version. I mean first of all, when did the British need any help from anyone else with being vulgar? Ever heard of Geoffrey Chaucer? And second of all, just as I hope we are properly grateful for the immense linguistic riches bequeathed to us by Shakespeare and the committeemen who wrote the King James Bible (and no, I'm not being ironic. Americans don't do irony – or so my children tell me), so you ought to thank us for the swell examples of colloquial communication found in Hollywood films like His Girl Friday or Bringing Up Baby. I mean what's not to like?
But are you grateful? No way, Jose! There are exceptions, of course. James Joyce had Molly Bloom schlep around Dublin in 1922 – but Joyce was an Irishman, and without the Irish (and the Jews and African-Americans) the American slanguage would still be stuck on first base.
Only now the shoe (or boot) is on the other foot. At least that's what the BBC tells us, in a recent report by the magnificently monikered Cordelia Hebblethwaite. It seems that more and more British words are entering the American language. Now of course some Americans have always favoured a bit of British to try and raise the tone of their discourse. We call such people "stuffed shirts", though "toffs" is close enough. Indeed the shame of being seen as a linguistic striver is strong enough that despite 17 years in London, I still cringe at the memory of being caught offering to "hold the lift" for my sister last year.
No, what's new is that Mr and Mrs America and all the ships at sea are apparently quite (in the American sense of very, not the British sense of not very much at all) content to be heard referring to the "good bits" in a movie or novel, or a splendid "piece of kit" or even to inquire whether the neighbourhood joint "does food". At least so says Ben Yagoda, a freelance journalist and English professor who runs a website "tracking 'Ginger', 'Bits', 'Whinge', and other UK expressions that have got popular in the US" (nice to see Yagoda has still got a grip on the proper use of "got" as well).
Frankly, I'm relieved. The whole pretence/pretense that Britain and America are two countries separated by a common language has got me plum tuckered out. The language police at our house (by which I mean my British-educated wife and kids) are so quick on the draw that I've contemplated taking a vow of silence. Whether it's JK Rowling I have to thank or EL James – whose constant importation of Britishisms into the mouths of characters supposedly sleepless in Seattle prompted one Amazon reviewer to observe: "If I wrote like that, I'd use a pseudonym, too" – I am just deeply grateful that we can all now talk the talk without shame. The British are coming? About bloody time!