Read the text and answer the questions.
To start with, we cannot go on using oil for ever. We can do so for a few more decades
– perhaps until 2070, then it will run out. There will be none left – or at least, there will be hardly any left. At present, there is still plenty of oil under the ground. Engineers keep finding new sources of oil. But there are some realities which cannot be avoided.
The quantity of oil under the ground and under the sea is not infinite. It will not last for ever. As oil becomes rarer, it will become harder to extract. It will also become more and more expensive. It will therefore become more expensive than other fuels. Oil will always cause pollution.
However, scientists are making new forms of oil, using plants. Most of the oil that we eat comes from plants; and it is sometimes possible to make petrol from this oil. For instance, some types of diesel-fuel already contain sunflower oil.
Sunflowers produce oil too; but most of this oil is needed for cooking. Sunflower oil is cleaner than mineral oil, so it causes less pollution. But perhaps, in the long term, vegetable oils are not a good solution for the future; in the future we may need all the land for producing food. In reality, the future will have to be a future without oil – or with very little oil. Scientists are already developing cars, houses and plastics that do not use oil.
Electricity will be the energy of the third millennium, but it will have to be clean electricity. Today, electricity is produced in several different ways; some of it is produced using oil; but already oil-burning power-stations are being closed. Nuclear power-stations will be closed too, because they are very expensive and people do not want them.
Tomorrow's electricity will be made from gas, and from "renewable sources". In the long term, all our energy will come from "renewable sources" – including water! The sun, the wind, the rivers and the oceans will give us all the energy that we need! It will be clean energy
– with no pollution – and it will last for ever.
We are not there yet, however! The twenty-first century will be a century of change. People who are over 50 today are not going to see a world without oil. Those who are under twenty may perhaps do so. if they live long enough.
Complete this résumé of the article, putting appropriate words in the blanks.
Oil is one of the most important of in today's world; but unless we finding more and more, it will not for . In less than a century, it will . Most of the oil we comes from the ground, but some comes from .
But plants cannot produce all the oil we.
In tomorrow's world, we will use oil and more, but most of this will have to come from.
In thewe will use a lot of, but later we will have to get our from natural forces.
It took her just over thirty hours to complete the distance, and for nearly ten of those hours she was swimming in complete darkness.
Everyone applauded Brenda for her strength and stamina, but they also applauded her for her bravery in tackling this most mysterious of Scottish lakes.
Fact or Fiction?
Loch Ness is the legendary home of probably the world's most famous monster.
In fact, less than three weeks before Brenda made her journey, the monster, or 'Nessie', as it's known to the local people, had made yet another appearance.
Four people reported seeing three great black humps on the loch surface, and said they had watched them travelling at high speed for three minutes before the creature dived.
There are reports of similar appearances as far back as the last century and every summer many new appearances are reported.
Is the monster fact or fiction?
Experts have been discussing that question for years, but in recent times more and more people have become convinced that a whole colony of giant creatures may live in the loch.
In 1962 a group of people formed an organization called the Bureau for the Investigation of the Loch Ness Phenomena.
Each summer, the Bureau enlists the aid of volunteers who watch the loch in daylight hours. And in 1966, they established powerful cameras on the banks to try for a picture that would prove 'Nessie's' existence.
Other people have photographed something on the loch's surface, but the pictures have never been quite good enough to convince anyone, although a film made in 1961 convinced a lot of people that there's something there.
The film was examined by photographic experts, who reported that it showed an object twenty-eight metres long, travelling at sixteen kilometres per hour.