第1686期:Tips on saving energy

We all want to save money, and with the cost of living on the rise in the UK, it’s become more important than ever to watch what we spend. The biggest increase in our expenditure at the moment is on energy – the oil, gas and electricity we use to power and heat our homes. That’s why many of us are looking at ways to save energy so we don’t have to shell out on huge fuel bills.我们都想省钱，随着英国生活成本的上升，关注我们的支出变得比以往任何时候都更加重要。目前，我们支出增长最大的是能源——我们用来为房屋供电和供暖的石油、天然气和电力。这就是为什么我们中的许多人都在寻找节省能源的方法，这样我们就不必支付巨额的燃料费用。Making our home more energy efficient is the obvious way to save money. To try to achieve this, new homes in the UK will be banned from installing new gas and oil boilers by 2025. Having a heat pump instead can help save energy, but they’re unaffordable for many people, unless they’ve got spare cash stashed away.让我们的家更节能是省钱的明显方法。为了实现这一目标，到 2025 年，英国的新住宅将被禁止安装新的燃气和燃油锅炉。使用热泵代替可以帮助节省能源，但对许多人来说负担不起，除非他们有闲钱藏起来了。If your home feels like a money pit, there are some low-budget solutions you can turn to to lower your energy usage. Warm air escapes our homes easily, so adding draught excluders or a rolled-up towel to block these gaps will help. Investing in new double glazing will certainly insulate your home better, but if it is too costly, it might be worth using some heavy curtains to stop the heat escaping. Switching off lights is also a good idea.如果您的家感觉像个钱坑，您可以求助于一些低预算的解决方案来降低能源消耗。温暖的空气很容易从我们的家中逸出，因此添加防风罩或卷起的毛巾来堵住这些缝隙会有所帮助。投资购买新的双层玻璃肯定会让您的房屋更好地隔热，但如果成本太高，使用一些厚重的窗帘来阻止热量逸出可能是值得的。关灯也是一个好主意。But there are lots of other little things we can do around the home that will help save energy, don’t cost a fortune and that just require tweaks to our behaviour. They could be as good as installing, fitting or making anything. Put lids on pots and pans when cooking – the food will be ready quicker. Use a microwave to reheat food rather than the oven. Don’t overfill your kettle when boiling water, and don’t leave electrical items on standby. Jo Patterson from Cardiff University’s Welsh School of Architecture told the BBC that a combination of small measures like these could reduce household energy bills by about 10%.但是我们可以在家里做很多其他的小事，这将有助于节省能源，不需要花费一大笔钱，只需要调整我们的行为。它们可以像安装、装配或制造任何东西一样好。烹饪时将锅碗瓢盆盖上 - 食物会更快准备好。使用微波炉而不是烤箱重新加热食物。开水时不要将水壶装得太满，也不要将电器放在备用状态。卡迪夫大学威尔士建筑学院的乔帕特森告诉 BBC，像这样的小措施的组合可以减少大约 10% 的家庭能源费用。So, we’re being encouraged to be more fuel efficient. But our main aim isn’t just financial – we need to do it to reduce our carbon footprint, so that our energy usage doesn’t cost the Earth.因此，我们被鼓励提高燃油效率。但我们的主要目标不仅仅是财务——我们需要这样做来减少我们的碳足迹，这样我们的能源使用就不会耗费地球。词汇表save 节省，节约cost of living 生活费用spend 花（钱）expenditure 支出shell out （通常指不情愿地）支付（一大笔钱）bill 账单unaffordable 支付不起的stash 藏匿，存放money pit 大钱坑，需要不断投钱的无底洞low-budget 低成本的invest 投资（购买）costly 昂贵的cost a fortune 极其昂贵，花大价钱tweak 稍作调整，稍稍改进measure 方法reduce 降低，减少financial 经济上的cost the Earth 让地球付出代价 (cost the earth 的原意是 “花费一大笔钱”)

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