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[2008.06.14]IInnovation,What crisis?
Worries that America is losing its edge in science and technology are overblown
“THE wolves have not encircled us yet,” the Denver Post opined in an article in 2006 entitled “Signs America's Scientific Edge is Slipping”, “but there's no denying the sounds of scratching at the door.”
This was a pithy summary of a mountain of reports from congressional committees, scientific panels and business groups. But a new report from the RAND Corporation's National Defence Research Institute, “US Competitiveness in Science and Technology”, suggests that the panic is overblown.
The report demonstrates that America is still the world's science and technology powerhouse. It accounts for 40% of total world spending on research and development, and produces 63% of the most frequently cited publications. It is home to 30 of the world's leading 40 universities, and employs 70% of the world's living Nobel laureates. America produces 38% of patented new technologies in the OECD and employs 37% of the OECD's researchers.
There is little evidence that America is resting on its laurels, according to RAND. Developing countries such as China and India may be boosting their science and technology muscle faster than America. But they are starting from a low base. America is outperforming Europe and Japan on many performance measures: in 1993-2003 America's growth rate in patents averaged 6.6% a year compared with 5.1% for the European Union and 4.1% for Japan.
One reason for America's angst was that the growth of federal spending on R&D slowed significantly with the end of the cold war. It only grew by 2.5% a year in 1994-2004 compared with a long-term average of 3.5% since 1953. The trouble with this statistic is that America has lots of sources of R&D spending: federal money accounted for only $86 billion of the $288 billion that it spent on R&D in 2004. Spending on the life sciences is increasing rapidly, a reasonable bet on the future.
Others worry that non-US citizens now account for 41% of science and engineering PhDs. But this is arguably a sign of America's continuing world domination: the world's brightest people are gravitating to the world's best opportunities. A higher proportion than ever of these paragons want to make their homes in the United States.

overblown停息的，盛开过的

Encircle包围

Pithy简练的，精辟的

Panels专门小组

Laurels殊荣

gravitating

Drying up

Oil and gas
Drying up

Production in the North Sea is falling faster than predicted

GORDON BROWN must have found Aberdeen a welcome refuge from London, where mutinous lorry-drivers clogged a main road in protest against the cost of diesel. The Scottish city is the centre of Britain's oil and gas industry, and the only place in the country where the eye-wateringly high price of oil is cause for celebration.

Mr Brown was in the Granite City on May 28th to discuss how to maximise production from Britain's oil and gas fields. Exhorting firms to pump harder, while a useful political gesture, is unlikely to make much difference to global prices. But that does not mean that revving up output is a bad idea.

5月28日，Brown 探讨英国油气如何提高产量到最大限度。有利的政治举措劝说公司努力开采，不可能对全球价格造成很大的不同。但是这并不以为着加快石油的开采是个不好的想法。

5月28日，布朗在花岗岩城（Granite City）商讨如何把英国油气田产量增至最大值。布朗敦促企业大力提高油气产量的举动，只不过是一种有效的政治姿态，但不可能对全球油价产生深远影响。不过，此举并不意味着增加产量是一个坏主意。

Britain's glory days as a fossil-fuel producer are over (in 1999 it was the world's sixth-biggest source of oil and gas; today it is 12th), but the business still employs around 30,000 people directly. Petropounds have made Aberdeen one of the most prosperous towns in the country, and expensive oil means more tax revenues. Oil and gas last year overtook banking as the biggest payer of corporate tax, contributing £7.8 billion ($15.6 billion) to the exchequer. Officials predict tax revenues of £9.9 billion this year, although firms say it could be nearer £12 billion if prices stay high.

Mr Brown has his work cut out to raise output. Since its peak in 1999 production has fallen by 40%. The North Sea has been pumped and drilled for 40 years and the big finds are gone. The discovery in 2001 of the Buzzard field, with over 500m barrels of recoverable oil, was a rare exception in a basin where the average new field holds just 20m barrels. Many new finds are technically tricky, which pushes up the cost of exploiting them. And although high oil prices make it attractive to try, they have led to higher operating costs as well.

Brown 降低产量，自从1999年的产量高峰下降到40%。北海已经开采了40年，平均是200桶，500桶原油是个例外。很多的新发现只是个诡计，提高了开采的成本。虽然高油价使得他们跃跃欲试，同时也将增加开采成本

在提高油气产量上，布朗仍需要做不少艰难的工作。自1999年达到顶峰以来，英国油气产量已下滑了40%。北海油田被钻探和开采了40年，规模较大的油田已不复存在。在北海，新勘探油田的可采石油平均储量为2000万桶，于2001年发现的储量在5亿桶的Buzzard油田却是一个罕见的特例。许多新油田在技术上出现了难题，这已增加了开发油田的费用。虽然高油价吸引着企业到北海进行尝试，但是高油价已引发了更高的运营成本。

With the low-hanging fruit plucked, the hope is that smaller companies will come in to pursue modest new discoveries or wring the last drops from existing fields. There are encouraging signs. Apache, a mid-sized American firm, has increased production from the elderly Forties field, the North Sea's biggest, which it acquired from BP in 2003. Reforms to the licensing system have helped, with the latest round attracting a record 193 applications. And there is still unexplored territory. The seabed west of the Shetlands may contain another 3 billion-4 billion barrels of oil and gas.

In spite of all this, production has fallen sharply. Oil & Gas UK, the industry's trade body, had hoped that output would be around 3m barrels a day in 2010, a target that now looks impossible. Worries over decommissioning costs are starting to affect asset trading, says Alex Kemp of Aberdeen University. There are no pipelines west of the Shetlands, and without the prospect of giant new fields to lure them, companies are reluctant to build any.

尽管如此，产油量在急剧下降。行业贸易商英国油气希望2010年产量达到300万桶，在现在看来难以实现。Alex说在影响贸易价值。

尽管如此，英国油气产量还是在急剧下降。油气产业的贸易机构Oil & Gas UK希望，石油日产量在2010年能够达到约300万桶，但现在看起来是一个难以实现的目标。阿伯丁大学的Alex Kemp表示，对石油禁运成本的忧虑也开始影响着石油交易。舍德兰群岛(Shetlands)西部并无石油管道。在未发现新型大油田的前景下，得不到利益诱惑的众多企业也不愿意修建任何管道。

But Mr Brown has other tools at his disposal. In his previous incarnation as chancellor, he pushed the tax rate for oil and gas firms to 50%, far higher than the 28% other companies pay. If he is serious about maximising production, reversing that would be a good start.

不过，布朗对个人决议却自有他法。在担当财政大臣期间，布朗曾把油气公司交纳的税率提高到50%，远远高于其他公司交纳28%的标准。如果布朗慎重对待油气产量增至最大值的决议，对以往油气税率进行前后颠倒的做法或许将是一个不错的开始。

Four wheels bad...

WHEN John Major, Britain's most recent Conservative prime minister, wanted to evoke the spirit of England in 1993, he bowdlerised George Orwell, talking romantically of “old maids bicycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist”. It was an anachronistic image: by the time Mr Major delivered his speech cycling accounted for only 1% of distance travelled on British roads, down from around a third of the total just after the second world war.

Today the proportion is even lower, at around 0.9%. But if the government has its way, the decline could soon be stopped. Whitehall is pouring money and effort into two-wheeled transport. Cycling England, a government-funded outfit that promotes pedal power, will see its budget increased from £10m to £60m by 2009. The cash will be spent on connecting schools to the national cycle-lane network, training for children and propaganda aimed at motorists. Six towns have already been singled out as test-beds; 11 more are planned.

Besides helping to reduce congestion (a growing problem on the roads in most places) and air pollution, the ambitious argue that bicycles can help to save both the nation and the world. Cycling is hard work and therefore likely to cut obesity in the fattest country in the European Union. And carbon-free bicycles could help ministers meet their elusive climate-change targets.

除了帮助减少交通拥挤（大多数地方路上的大问题）和空气污染，自行车对国家和整个世界都有利。骑车是个累人的事情，自行车不排放可以事项改变气候的目标

除了能够缓解交通拥堵（在多数地方日益成为公路上一大问题）和减少空气污染以外，更有人认为骑自行车无论对国家还是整个世界都有好处。因为骑车是一种体力活动，因此可以帮助英国这一全欧盟最“肥”的国家减少肥胖人口，而且自行车不存在碳化气体排放的问题，这样各位部长大人们可以全力应对气候变化这一难题。

Enthusiasts point to the two-wheeled renaissance in London as a source of good ideas for aspiring local councils. Transport for London (TfL) claims that cycling in the capital has increased by 83% since 2000, thanks to a combination of investment in cycle lanes, free lessons for the curious, a push from the congestion charge and a five-fold hike in funding. Ken Livingstone, the city's mayor, wants to see the number of cycling trips rise by 400% by 2025.

热衷者指出自行车的兴起，英国的交通自从2000年以来上升到83%，市长想要自行车数增长到400%到2005年

热衷于骑车出行的人士指出，自行车在伦敦重获欢迎，对于当地各市议会具有极大的启发作用。伦敦交通管理局声称2000年以来，伦敦骑自行车出行增长了83%，这要感谢在自行车道建设方面的投资、为对骑车感兴趣的人们提供的免费培训课程、交通拥堵税的征收、以及增长5倍之多的资金支持。伦敦市长肯•利文斯顿希望到2025年，自行车出行能够增加400%。
Concerns about safety, which keep many would-be cyclists wedded to their cars, seem overblown. Despite the surge of new cyclists, London has seen the numbers killed or seriously injured fall by around a third over the past decade, and national data show a similar trend.
TfL attributes this partly to education campaigns and partly to safety in numbers: the more cyclists there are, the better motorists become at sharing the road with them.

Another shining example for cycling fans is Cambridge, where an echo of Mr Major's Albion can just about be discerned in the dons and students cycling between ancient colleges. Cambridge is widely regarded as the most cycle-mad city in Britain, with around a quarter of its residents biking to work, eight times the national average. That reflects some natural advantages (the place is mostly flat) and some deliberate decisions (such as plenty of cycle lanes and places to lock up bikes). But historically, no conscious decision is responsible for cycling's popularity. Other, less tangible cultural factors seem to be at work, harder to export to the rest of the country. “Everyone does it and always has,” explains one Cantabrigian. “It's just the way Cambridge is.”