Tapping into the water cycle and generating electricity from rainy days could be one way to grow our renewable energy use.

Until now， scientists have been unable to get water droplets to produce a significant amount of power—but they may finally have a breakthrough.

While scientists are still a long way from umbrellas that double up as generators， the latest approach shows there might be a way to get power from rain showers at a level of efficiency that makes these systems practical.

New research has found a method that could generate enough power from a single droplet of rain to light up 100 LED bulbs. Thats a big jump forward in efficiency， in the region of several thousand times.

“Our research shows that a drop of 100 microliters of water released from a height of 15 centimeters can generate a voltage of over 140V， and the power generated can light up 100 small LED lights，” says biomedical engineer Wang Zuankai from the City University of Hong Kong.

That sounds like a surprising amount of voltage， but the engineers used some ingenious tricks to make it happen.

Scientists have been looking into this type of power production for years， but the physics of converting the energy of raindrops into electricity are much harder to do than harvesting the energy from a rising tide or a flowing stream.

Theres plenty of work still to do to get this ready for practical use however， with the researchers hoping to have a prototype ready in the next five years.

利用水循環(huán)在雨天發(fā)電可以成為利用可再生能源的方法。

到目前為止，科學家還不能利用水滴大量發(fā)電，但他們可能終于有所突破了。

雖然科學家們還不能把雨傘變成發(fā)電機，但最新的方法表明，利用雨水發(fā)電可能是一種有效、可行的方法。

新的研究發(fā)現了一種方法，用1滴雨水發(fā)的電能點亮100個LED燈泡。效率大大提高了，是以前的幾千倍。

香港城市大學生物醫(yī)學工程師王鉆開說：“我們的研究表明從15厘米高的地方滴下的100微升的水發(fā)電量超過140V，能點亮100個小的LED燈?！?/p>

這發(fā)電量聽起來驚人，但工程師為此使用了一些巧妙的技巧。

科學家近些年一直在研究這種發(fā)電方法，但把雨滴的能量轉化為電能的物理學難度比利用漲潮或流水發(fā)電高得多。

但要真正投入使用，還有大量工作要做，研究人員希望在未來五年能做出一個樣品。

Word Study

generate /'d?en?re?t/ v. 產生;引起

We need someone to generate new ideas.

approach /?'pr??t?/ n. 方法;方式

n. & v. （時間或距離上）接近

We will be exploring different approaches to gathering information.

Winter is approaching.

release /r?'li?s/ n. & v. 釋放

She felt the sudden sweet release of her own tears.