Questões de Concursos Inglês

What are the best energy sources? "Best" depends on many factors - how the energy is being used, where it is being used, what energy sources are available, which sources are most convenient and reliable, which5 are easiest to use, what each costs, and the effects on public safety, health, and the environment. Making smart energy choices means understanding resources and their relative costs and benefits. Some energy sources have advantages for specific10 uses or locations. For example, fuels from petroleum are well suited for transportation because they pack a lot of energy in a small space and are easily transported and stored. Small hydroelectric installations are a good solution for supplying power or mechanical energy close15 to where it is used. Coal is widely used for power generation in many fast-developing countries - including China, India, and many others - because domestic supplies are readily available. Efficiency is an important factor in energy costs.20 How efficiently can the energy be produced, delivered, and used? How much energy value is lost in that process, and how much ends up being transformed into useful work? Industries that produce or use energy continually look for ways to improve efficiency, since this is a key to25 making their products morecompetitive. The ideal energy source - cheap, plentiful, and pollution-free - may prove unattainable in our lifetime, but that is the ultimate goal. The energy industry is continuing to improve its technologies and practices, to30 produce and use energy more efficiently and cleanly. Energy resources are often categorized as renewable or nonrenewable. Renewable energy resources are those that can be replenished quickly - examples are solar power,35 biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric, wind power, and fast-reaction nuclear power. They supply about seven percent of energy needs in the United States; theother 93 percent comes from nonrenewables. The two largest categories of renewable energy now in use in the U.S.40 are biomass - primarily wood wastes that are used by the forest products industry to generate electricity and heat - and hydroelectricity. Nonrenewable energy resources include coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium-235, which is used to fuel45 slow-reaction nuclear power. Projections of how long a nonrenewable energy resource will last depend on many changeable factors. These include the growth rate of consumption, and estimates of how much of the remaining resources can be economically recovered. New exploration50 and production technologies often increase theability of producers to locate and recover resources. World reserves of fossil energy are projected to last for many more decades - and, in the case of coal, for centuries.In: http://www.classroom-energy.org/teachers/energy_tour/pg5.html

     It now seems to me that what matters most in the majority
of organizations is to have reasonably intelligent, hard-working
managers who have a sense of pride and loyalty toward their
organization; who can get to the root of a problem and are inclined
toward action; who are decent human beings with a natural empathy
and concern for people; who possess humor, humility, and common
sense; and who are able to couple drive with stick-to-it-iveness* and
patience in the accomplishment of a goal.
     It is the ability to make positive things happen that most
distinguishes the successful manager from the mediocre or
unsuccessful one. It is far better to have dependable managers who
can make the right things happen in a timely fashion than to have
brilliant, sophisticated, highly educated executives who are excellent
at planning and analyzing, but who are not so good at implementing.
The most cherished manager is the one who says “I can do it,” and
then does.
     Many business schools continue to focus almost exclusively
on the development of analytical skills. As a result, these schools are
continuing to graduate large numbers of students who know a great
deal about analyzing strategies, dissecting balance sheets, and using
computers — but who still don’t know how to manage!
     As a practical matter, of course, schools can go only so far
in teaching their students to manage. Only actual work experience
will fully develop the kinds of managerial traits, skills, and virtues
that I have discussed here.

*the ability and determination to continue doing something despite difficulties.
Wegman, Knezevic, Bernstein. A reading skills book, 3.d
ed. Mac Graw-Hill Companies, Inc. (adapted).

Based on the text above, judge the items below.

TEXT 2
Innovation is the new key to survival

[…]

At its most basic, innovation presents an optimal strategy for controlling costs. Companies that have invested in such technologies as remote mining, autonomous equipment and driverless trucks and trains have reduced expenses by orders of magnitude, while simultaneously driving up productivity.

Yet, gazing towards the horizon, it is rapidly becoming clear that innovation can do much more than reduce capital intensity. Approached strategically, it also has the power to reduce people and energy intensity, while increasing mining intensity.

Capturing the learnings 

The key is to think of innovation as much more than research and development (R&D) around particular processes or technologies. Companies can, in fact, innovate in multiple ways, such as leveraging supplier knowledge around specific operational challenges, redefining their participation in the energy value chain or finding new ways to engage and partner with major stakeholders and constituencies.

To reap these rewards, however, mining companies must overcome their traditionally conservative tendencies. In many cases, miners struggle to adopt technologies proven to work at other mining companies, let alone those from other industries. As a result, innovation becomes less of a technology problem and more of an adoption problem.

By breaking this mindset, mining companies can free themselves to adapt practical applications that already exist in other industries and apply them to fit their current needs. For instance, the tunnel boring machines used by civil engineers to excavate the Chunnel can vastly reduce miners" reliance on explosives. Until recently, those machines were too large to apply in a mining setting. Some innovators, however, are now incorporating the underlying technology to build smaller machines—effectively adapting mature solutions from other industries to realize more rapid results. 

Re-imagining the future

At the same time, innovation mandates companies to think in entirely new ways. Traditionally, for instance, miners have focused on extracting higher grades and achieving faster throughput by optimizing the pit, schedule, product mix and logistics. A truly innovative mindset, however, will see them adopt an entirely new design paradigm that leverages new information, mining and energy technologies to maximize value. […]

Approached in this way, innovation can drive more than cost reduction. It can help mining companies mitigate and manage risks, strengthen business models and foster more effective community and government relations. It can help mining services companies enhance their value to the industry by developing new products and services. Longer-term, it can even position organizations to move the needle on such endemic issues as corporate social responsibility, environmental performance and sustainability.

(http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/ru/Document s/energy-resource /ru_er_tracking_the_trends_2015_eng.pdf)

   Is blue growth the beginning or end of a healthier ocean?

March 17th 2015

Across the globe, countries are increasingly looking seaward in search of new economic opportunities, including oil, gas, and mineral extraction from the sea floor, renewable energy development, and biotechnology.
The push to expand this so-called “blue economy" comes at a time when the ecological health of the oceans is seriously degraded. Last year, the Economist"s World Ocean Summit concluded with a resounding consensus that more needs to be done to protect and restore the world"s seas, especially the high seas. Will blue growth help or harm efforts to achieve a healthier ocean ecosystem?
The U.N. has proposed ambitious sustainable development goals relating to ocean health. They include reducing pollution from agriculture run-off, decreasing untreated sewage and solid waste, rebuilding depleted fish stocks, and protecting and restoring natural habitats.
A healthy ocean ecosystem is a public good—both locally and globally. Mangroves, corals, and salt marshes protect  coastal towns from storms. Oceans store carbon and produce oxygen that benefits us all. And areas of high biodiversity support global fisheries and are essential for resilient and productive oceans.
These natural benefits can remain intact if nations encourage—and even require—participants in the blue economy to reinvest the economic capital created from that economy in the natural capital of marine and coastal ecosystems; namely by restoring degraded habitats, protecting healthy ones, and financing blue economy “greening" efforts.
Channeling the new wealth of a growing blue economy into projects that will build a healthier ocean will require new financial tools. For instance, a global ocean trust fund, eco taxes, or user fees could be managed at the global level (say the U.N., World Bank, or the Global Environmental Facility) or even at a regional level, perhaps through existing regional seas organisations.
But for now the blue economy needs to aim higher than merely to do no harm. Converting blue economic capital into blue natural capital can raise all boats and produce a healthier, more sustainable blue economy.

                       (http://www.economistinsights.com/opinion/blue-growth-beginning-or-endhealthier-ocean)

Two of the greatest technologies of our age are telecommunications and computer engineering. Telecommunications is concerned with moving information from one point to another point or from one point to many other points. I think it is no exaggeration to say that the telecommunications industry is largely taken for granted by the vast majority of people. If you were to ask the average person what the greatest technological feat of 1969 was, they would probably reply ‘The first manned landing on the moon’. A much more magnificent achievement was the ability of millions of people half a million kilometres away to watch what was taking place on the moon in their own homes. However, if most people are not aware of the great developments in the telecommunications industry, they will not have missed the microprocessor revolution. In the last few years powerful computers have become even more powerful and minicomputers and microprocessors have spread to industry, education, research, and the home.

(Extraído de: The Principles of Computer Hardware, Alan Clements, International Student Edition, 2nd, 1991)