full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Myles Allen: Fossil fuel companies know how to stop global warming. Why don't they?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Some people argue that if we work hard enough we can drive down the cost of renewable energy so far that we won't need to ban fssoil fuels, the people will stop using them of their own accord. This kind of tkiihnng is dangerously optimistic. For one thing, renewable energy costs might not go down as fast as they hope. I mean, remember, nuclear eenrgy was meant to be too cheap to meter in the 1970s, but even more importantly, we've no idea how low fossil fuel prices might fall in rnssepoe to that competition. There are so many uses of fossil carbon, from aviation fuel to cmenet pcrtuoodin, it's not enough for carbon-free alternatives to outcompete the big ones, to stop fossil fuels from causing further global warming, carbon-free alternatives would need to opomeutcte them all.

Open Cloze

Some people argue that if we work hard enough we can drive down the cost of renewable energy so far that we won't need to ban ______ fuels, the people will stop using them of their own accord. This kind of ________ is dangerously optimistic. For one thing, renewable energy costs might not go down as fast as they hope. I mean, remember, nuclear ______ was meant to be too cheap to meter in the 1970s, but even more importantly, we've no idea how low fossil fuel prices might fall in ________ to that competition. There are so many uses of fossil carbon, from aviation fuel to ______ __________, it's not enough for carbon-free alternatives to outcompete the big ones, to stop fossil fuels from causing further global warming, carbon-free alternatives would need to __________ them all.

Solution

  1. energy
  2. production
  3. fossil
  4. response
  5. thinking
  6. outcompete
  7. cement

Original Text

Some people argue that if we work hard enough we can drive down the cost of renewable energy so far that we won't need to ban fossil fuels, the people will stop using them of their own accord. This kind of thinking is dangerously optimistic. For one thing, renewable energy costs might not go down as fast as they hope. I mean, remember, nuclear energy was meant to be too cheap to meter in the 1970s, but even more importantly, we've no idea how low fossil fuel prices might fall in response to that competition. There are so many uses of fossil carbon, from aviation fuel to cement production, it's not enough for carbon-free alternatives to outcompete the big ones, to stop fossil fuels from causing further global warming, carbon-free alternatives would need to outcompete them all.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
fossil fuels 17
carbon dioxide 14
fossil fuel 7
global warming 7
decarbonize fossil 5
fuel industry 4
young engineers 3
stop fossil 3
decarbonizing fossil 3
dioxide disposal 3
causing global 2
ton generated 2
climate change 2
stop global 2
ban fossil 2
renewable energy 2
permanently disposed 2
fossil carbon 2
percent carbon 2
carbon capture 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
fossil fuel industry 4
decarbonize fossil fuels 3
stop fossil fuels 3
carbon dioxide disposal 3
stop global warming 2
percent carbon capture 2
decarbonizing fossil fuels 2

Important Words

  1. accord
  2. alternatives
  3. argue
  4. aviation
  5. ban
  6. big
  7. carbon
  8. causing
  9. cement
  10. cheap
  11. competition
  12. cost
  13. costs
  14. dangerously
  15. drive
  16. energy
  17. fall
  18. fast
  19. fossil
  20. fuel
  21. fuels
  22. global
  23. hard
  24. hope
  25. idea
  26. importantly
  27. kind
  28. meant
  29. meter
  30. nuclear
  31. optimistic
  32. outcompete
  33. people
  34. prices
  35. production
  36. remember
  37. renewable
  38. response
  39. stop
  40. thinking
  41. warming
  42. work