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6 april 2023 Read On
Hollywood comes to
a Welsh football pitch
SPORT • ENTERTAINMENT The actors
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought
the poorly performing Wrexham AFC.
A dam in Oregon. Natel wants to retrofit older hydropower plants
to make them fish-friendly. | Photo: Getty Images
Making hydropower
more fish-friendly
ECOLOGY • TECHNOLOGY An American
company has designed a new turbine that reduces
the risk of fish getting hurt or dying when they
swim through hydropower plants.
mit Audiodatei und
By Franziska Lange
1 HYDROPOWER produces
green energy, and this can help
us lower our carbon emissions.
However, many people are
against new hydropower projects
because so many fish die when
they swim through the turbines
of hydropower plants during
their migrations.
2 In a hydropower plant, water
is channelled through turbines,
making the blades of these turbines
rotate. This rotation powers
generators which produce
electricity. Sharper blades can
cut through the water more efficiently.
But they’re also more
dangerous for fish: around 22 per
cent of the fish that pass through
turbines are killed. For larger fish,
this number can be even higher.
3 The number of American eels,
for example, has gone down by
50 per cent over the last decades.
Their migration between the US
and the Sargasso Sea, an area of
the Atlantic Ocean off the eastern
coast of the US where they
Übungsmaterial
spawn, is not only dangerous
because of trawling; the sharp
blades of hydropower turbines in
their way are also a big problem.
4 But now there’s a way to produce
emissions-free energy while
keeping fish safe. Natel Energy, a
power producer and hydro turbine
developer from California,
has designed a new turbine that
can be used at low-head hydropower
plants. Their Restoration
Hydro Turbine has blades with
blunted and curved edges, making
it much safer for fish to pass
through the turbine.
5 Gia Schneider, the CEO and
co-founder of Natel, told Forbes
magazine, “the blades in our
turbine have a [...] unique shape
that makes them somewhat like
an airbag if fish hit them – the fish
are deflected around the blade”:
and that reduces their risk of getting
hurt or dying.
6 Natel’s turbine also makes
building hydropower plants less
expensive because the bypasses
and fish screens which are often
used to keep fish from getting
Natel’s Restoration Hydro
Turbine has blades that allow
fish to pass through it safely.
| Photo: natelenergy.com
1 A ‘FISHout of water’ film
has the theme of someone being
put into an unusual and/
or unfamiliar situation. When
the actors Ryan Reynolds, star
of the Deadpool films, and Rob
McElhenney, from the television
show It’s Always Sunny in
Philadelphia, bought one of Britain’s
unluckiest football clubs,
Wales’s Wrexham AFC, it fit the
‘fish out of water’ theme to a tee.
And Reynolds and McElhenney
even made a film about it – the
Disney+ six-part documentary
Welcome to Wrexham.
2 All this made locals suspicious,
according to The Sydney
Morning Herald. “They battled
hostility from fans … and
were teased for not knowing the
offside rules”, the newspaper
writes.
3 But McElhenney says he
wanted to buy Wrexham AFC
because the club and its fans
reminded him of his own hometown
(American) football team,
the Philadelphia Eagles. However,
McElhenney didn’t have
the money to buy the club alone:
“I’m only in TV. I needed a movie
star with millions”, he said. So he
thought of Reynolds.
4 McElhenney says he had met
Reynolds only once, on a photoshoot.
But he knew Reynolds
was also a businessman. Reyninto
turbines aren’t needed. This
is better for fish too, as they can
get trapped in fish screens, and
bypasses delay their migration.
7 The new turbine design has
been tested several times. In
one test, all of the 131 American
eels that passed through it survived.
And tests at two plants in
the states of Oregon and Maine,
where Natel has already installed
its turbines, showed that
more than 99 per cent of fish
passed safely through the turbines.
8 Not only does the turbine let
fish swim through safely, it also
lets important river sediment
pass. And it can be combined
with natural structures, such
as log jams and beaver dams,
which helps reduce the negative
effects of hydropower plants on
ecosystems.
9 For now, Natel wants to retrofit
hydropower plants that
are already there. Co-founder
Abe Schneider says that “making
changes to what’s already
there, not necessarily ... building
a whole bunch of additional
hydro” is the best option right
now. In the US, there are
around 1,500 active hydropower
plants. Hopefully someday
soon, many more of them
will be fish-friendly.
0 – 1 HYDROPOWER “"haIdr´U--‘ Wasserkraft — ecology
“i"kÅl´dZi‘ Ökologie — turbine “"t‰…baIn‘ — to reduce s.th.
etw. verringern — risk Risiko — plant Anlage — to produce
s.th. etw. erzeugen — to lower s.th. etw. verringern
— carbon emissions “"kA…b´n iÆmIS´nz‘ CO 2 -Ausstoß —
migration “maI"greIS´n‘ Wanderung
2 to channel s.th. etw. lenken, leiten — blade Blatt —
to rotate rotieren — rotation “r´U"teIS´n‘ — to power s.th.
etw. antreiben — generator “"dZen´reIt´‘ — sharp scharf
— to cut through s.th. etw. durchdringen — efficiently
“I"fIS´ntli‘ — to pass through s.th. etw. durch queren
3 – 4 eel Aal — off the coast vor der Küste — to spawn
laichen — trawling Schleppnetzfischerei — power producer
Energieproduzent — developer “dI"vel´p´‘ Entwickler
— low-head … … mit geringer Fallhöhe — restoration
“Ærest´r"eIS´n‘ Wiederherstellung — blunted stumpf
— curved gebogen — edge Kante
5 – 6 CEO = chief executive officer “ÆtSi…f Ig"zekjUtIv‘
Geschäftsführer(in) — co-founder Mitbegründer(in) —
unique “ju…"ni…k‘ einzigartig — shape Form — to deflect
s.th. around s.th. etw. um etw. herumleiten — bypass
Umleitung — fish screen Fischschutzrechen — to get
trapped stecken bleiben — to delay s.th. etw. verzögern
7 – 9 to survive “s´"vaIv‘ überleben — sediment
“"sedIm´nt‘ — natural “"nœtS´r´l‘ natürlich — structure(s)
“"strøktS´‘ Bau(ten) — log jam Holzansammlung — beaver
dam Biberdamm — to retrofit nachrüsten — necessarily
unbedingt — a whole bunch of (coll) eine ganze Reihe an
By Siobhan Bruns
olds owns a gin company and a
phone company. So he sent him
a message on Twitter.
5 “I think Rob thought of my gin
as a sponsor first”, Reynolds says.
“But I said, ‘What if we just drove
off the cliff together?’”
6 McElhenney and Reynolds
paid £2 million for the club,
which they took over in February
2021. Wrexham AFC are in
the National League, which is
the fifth tier of the British football
leagues. They say their goal
is to get the club into the Premier
League.
7 Since buying the club, the
two have invested a lot of money
in players. However, some still
question whether McElhenney
and Reynolds are really in it for
the long haul or if this is all just a
kind of stunt.
8 But after a thrilling match
where Wrexham AFC tied 3–3
with Sheffield United, a club
three levels above them, sports
writer Martin Samuel argued in
the Times their reasons for buying
the club didn’t really matter.
9 “This is football as it is meant
to be: football for the community,
football for the amusement of the
working class. Does it matter that
McElhenney and Reynolds are
also making a very watchable
product for Disney+ out of it? It
does not”, Samuel said, adding,
“The local publican described
a city transformed. Reynolds
[sold] 24,000 shirts, merchandise
sent around the world. A little
[Hollywood] stardust has
put Wrexham on the
map.”
Ryan Reynolds
(left) and Rob
McElhenney.
| Photo: Getty
Images
0 – 1 WELSH walisisch — football pitch Fußballfeld — to perform poorly
h.: schlecht spielen — to be a fish out of water (fig) sich in einer ungewohnten
Situation wiederfinden — unfamiliar “Æønf´"mIlj´‘ unbekannt — to fit
s.th. to a tee (fig) perfekt zu etw. passen
2 local Einheimische(r); örtlich — to make s.o. suspicious “s´"spIS´s‘
jdn. misstrauisch machen — according to “´"kO…dIN‘ laut — hostility “hÅs"tIl´ti‘
Anfeindung — to tease s.o. jdn. aufziehen — offside rules Abseitsregeln
3 – 5 to remind s.o. of s.th. jdn. an etw. erinnern — eagle “"i…g´l‘ Adler — to
own s.th. etw. besitzen — to drive off the cliff (fig) über die Klippe springen
6 – 8 league “li…g‘ Liga — fifth tier “tI´‘ fünfthöchste Spielklasse — goal Ziel
— to be in s.th. for the long haul “hO…l‘ (fig) sich langfristig für etw. engagieren
— stunt Gag — thrilling spannend — to tie with s.o. unentschieden gegen
jdn. spielen — level Klasse — sports writer Sportjournalist(in) — to argue
“"A…gju…‘ argumentieren
9 as it is meant to be wie es sein soll — watchable “"wÅtS´b´l‘ sehenswert
— publican “"pøblIk´n‘ Kneipenwirt(in) — to transform s.th. etw. völlig verändern
— shirt sales verkaufte Trikots — stardust Sternenstaub; h.: (fig)
Starruhm — to put s.th. on the map (fig) etw. bekannt machen