Reading and Writing fill in the blanks practice exercise. Below is text with blanks. Choose the correct word for each blank to complete the text.
Peering into the future seldom produces a clear picture. But this is not the (1…………) with bio-energy. Its longterm impacts on the global economy appear to be pretty clear, making many long-term predictions quite compelling, including the demise of the price-setting power of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and the end of agricultural protectionism.
First, technology is (2…………) to deliver a biofuel that will be competitive with fossil energy at something like current prices. It probably already has. Brazil has been exporting ethanol to the US at an average delivery price of $1.45 for an amount with the energy equivalence of a gallon of petrol. It is doing so profitably and in increasing amounts, in spite of a 54 cents a gallon tariff to protect American maize-based ethanol (3…………..). Many countries are following suit.
But ethanol is an inconvenient chemical compound that is corrosive and soluble in water, thus limiting its immediate market to that of a gasoline additive. However, this is just the Betamax phase of the industry. There is plenty of private venture capital money being (4…………..) into finding more efficient ways of extracting energy from biomass and delivering it to transport and power systems. Over time, the technology will also become more flexible, allowing more crops to be used as feedstock, not just the current choice of sugarcane, maize and palm oil. New technologies will be able to extract energy from cellulose, allowing the use of pastures such as switch grass as well as the refuse of current food production.
1. circumstance, occurrence, incidence, condition
2. assured, called, constrained, bound
3. producers, directors, programmers, harvesters
4. poured, emptied, streamed, spent
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