Topic: Electricity; Alternative Power Sources

Essential vocabulary: inventions, discoveries, conversion, electrical devices, equipment, supply, charge, energy-efficient, renewable energy, to convert, power plants, to group into arrays, solar cells, maintenance, turbines, blades, tidal flow, photo-voltaic, kinetic energy, generator, to derive from, to require skills, to be extracted, to pipe, to be available, the advantage of, to outweigh, to emit.

Grammar: Perfect Tenses

Lesson 1

Ex. 1 Answer the questions.

1. Can you imagine our life without electricity?

2. What do you know about electricity?

3. Where does electricity come from?

4. Do you know any scientists who made a great contribution to discovery of electricity?

5. What effects can electricity produce?

6. What sources of energy do you know?

7. What are the main benefits of using electricity?

8. Does it have any disadvantages?

9. What electrical appliances do you use at home?

10. What device or machine would you miss if you had to work without electricity for a day or week?

11. Why should people be extremely careful while working with electrical devices?

Learn the new words to Text 3A.

1. discover v. –открывать

2. invent v.– изобретать

3. charge n. - заряд

4. entity n. –существо, организм

5. renewable adj. – возобновляемый

6. decipher v. – расшифровывать, разбирать

7. alternating current n. –переменный ток

8. amber n. - янтарь

9. curiosity n. - любознательность

10. available (adj,) - доступный

11. defined adj. - определённый

12. notable accomplishments n. - значительные достижения

13. incandescent bulb n.- лампа накаливания

14. arc light bulb n. - дуговая лампа

15. supply n. – подача

16. conversion n. – преобразование

17. energy-efficient adj. – энергосберегающий

18. take for granted v. - принимать как должное

Ex. 2 Read Text 3A and answer the questions.

Text 3A

Electricity

Over the hundreds of years in our world’s history, there have been many great inventions and discoveries. The discovery of electricity is one of the greatest. But what is “electricity”? It is the form of energy that can be produced in several ways and that provides power to devices that create light, heat, etc. The term “electricity” came from Greek “elektron” which means amber. Electricity is the flow of electrical power or charge. It is both a basic part of nature and one of the most widely used forms of energy.

The customers get electricity from the conversion of other sources of energy, such as coal, natural gas, nuclear, solar, or wind energy. The energy sources used to make electricity can be renewable or nonrenewable, but electricity itself is not renewable or nonrenewable.

One of the greatest advantages of electricity is that it is clean, easily-regulated and generates no by-products. Applications of electricity now cover all fields of human activity from house wash­ing machines to the latest laser devices and computers. Electricity is the efficient [ɪ'fɪʃnt] source of some of the most recent technological advances such as the laser and electron beams.

But before electricity became available more than 100 years ago, houses were lit with candles and kerosene lamps, food was cooled in iceboxes, and rooms were warmed by wood -burning or coal-burning stoves.

Scientists and inventors have worked to decipher the principles of electricity since the 1600s. Such great minds as Nikola Tesla, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse and Lord Kelvin transformed electricity from a mere intellectual curiosity into the defined scientific principle that it is today. Some notable accomplishments were made by Benjamin Franklin who demonstrated that lightning is electricity. Thomas Edison invented the first long-lasting incandescent light bulb.

Before 1879, direct current (DC) electricity had been used in arc lights for outdoor lighting. In the late 1800s, Nikola Tesla pioneered the generation, transmission, and use of alternating current (AC) electricity, which reduced the cost of transmitting electricity over long distances.        Tesla's inventions used electricity to bring indoor lighting to homes and used electricity to power industrial machines.

Despite its great importance in daily life, few people probably stop to think what life would be like without electricity. Like air and water, people tend to take electricity for granted.

Individuals have become accustomed to use electricity in everyday life for electricity illuminates houses, switches on our televisions and computers, energies our laptops, cooks our food, powers vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, washing machines and other electrically operated devices, which enables us to live more comfortably. Every little single factor on the planet involves electricity. We may not be able to touch electricity, but it touches our lives every day. Now, are you able to imagine existence without electricity?

But it’s also important that we use electricity wisely. Wise electricity use helps us to become more energy-efficient as a nation, reduces our environmental impact, saves us money on our electricity bill, and keeps our nation’s electricity supply more reliable. Actually electricity provides mankind with the energy of the future.

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