All Ships suffer from fouling: the build-up below the waterline of shellfish, seaweeds and other organisms.This causes drag, which slows the affected craft and increases its fuel consumption.Regular hull cleaning thus makes a considerable difference to the profitability of shipping.It also results in a useful reduction in the amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide emitted by the world's merchant shipping--an industry that many environmentalists think is notoriously dirty and which could therefore do with burnishing its green credentials.Roar Adland, a shipping economist at the Norwegian School of Economics, in Bergen,says that a midsized oil tanker's fuel consumption (and also, consequently, its emission of carbon dioxide) drops by around 9% after its hull is cleaned at sea--something that happens, on average, once every six or seven months.

译文

所有船只都会遭遇污垢：堆积在水线以下的甲壳类动物、海藻以及其他生物体。这会造成阻力，降低了受影响船只的速度，增加了其耗油量。因此，定期的船体表面清洗对航运的盈利能力有相当大的影响。它还有效地减少了全球商船所排放的导致全球变暖的二氧化碳总量——许多环保人士认为该行业是出了名的肮脏，该行业因此可以擦亮它的绿色证书了。卑尔根市挪威经济学院的海运经济学家Roar Adland表示，中型油轮的耗油量（同时，也会释放出二氧化碳）会在进行海面船体表面清洗后下降约9%——这种情况平均每六、七个月发生一次。

If the cleaning is done in a dry dock, which allows the process to be more thorough, that figure can be as much as17%.At the moment, cleaning at sea is done by teams of divers.In recent years, robots have sometimes been added to underwater cleaning crews, and have proved effective.Jotun, a Norwegian coatings company, and Semcon, a Swedish engineering firm, propose, however, to go one step further.They want to replace the divers completely with a machine. That machine, moreover, would not merely defoul a ship's hull, but stop it fouling up in the first place.HullSkater, as the consortium dub their invention, is a 200kg hull-crawling robot.It will reside permanently on-board ship, ready to be launched whenever the vessel is stationary--for example, when it is waiting in the roads outside a port for a berth to unload and load. To deploy the robot, it is first lowered overboard by a crane.

译文
如果是在干船坞进行清洗工作，那么这个过程会更加全面，该数字可达到17%。目前，海上清洁工作是由潜水队员团队完成。近些年，机器人有时会加入水下清洁团队，而且效果很好。但挪威涂料公司佐敦漆以及瑞典工程公司Semcon提议更进一步。他们希望用机器完全替代潜水员。此外，这台机器不仅能够清理船只的船体，还能在一开始就防止船体污垢。他们将自己的发明称为HullSkater，这是一个200公斤重的船体爬行机器人。它将永久驻留在船上，在船只停航时，随时准备启动——例如，当它在港口外等待泊位装卸货物时。要部署这个机器人，首先要用起重机将其吊到船外。

Its four magnetic wheels, each of which is fitted with a motor, then clamp it to the hull and it can start trundling around.After this, the ship's crew need do nothing. Wherever the vessel happens to be on the planet,the robot is piloted remotely by an operator on land, who may be half a world away, via a 4G phone connection.Inspecting and cleaning a hull takes HullSkater between two and eight hours, depending on the size and design of the ship.The robot is fitted with special brushes that can probe the nooks and crannies of naval architecture--the areas around propellers, for example--and its four cameras provide its operators with a detailed view of what is going on,and also help to keep track of whereabouts on the hull the machine is.The idea is to keep the hull permanently clean, by regularly removing from it the layers or slime-producing bacteria that are the first stage of the fouling process.

译文
它的四个磁铁轮子上都装有一个发动机，然后将它固定在船体上，它就可以慢慢移动了。之后，船员什么都不需要做。无论船只在地球上的哪个地方，该机器人都能由陆地上的一名操作人员操控，相隔半个地球之远的操作员也能通过4G手机连接进行远程操作。检查和清理船体需要花费HullSkater两到八小时的时间，这取决于船只的大小和设计。这个机器人装有特殊的刷子，可以探测船只的各个角落和缝隙——比如，螺旋桨周围的区域——并且其四个相机为操作人员提供了关于其工作进程的详细视角，同时也有助于追踪该机器人在船体上的位置。其目的是为了保持船体永久清洁，并通过定期清理表层或污垢细菌的方式来实现，这些是防污流程的第一阶段。

注释
1.fuel consumption 耗油量

Stratospheric winds may also influence commercial air traffic as airliners fly higher to reduce the fuel consumption.

为了减少油耗，许多客机会上升高度，而平流层气流也会对客机造成影响。

2.considerable 相当大/多的

Aerial footage shows very considerable damage.

空中拍摄的视频显示，破坏程度相当严重。

3.emission 排放

Carbon emissions are at unprecedented levels.

目前的碳排放量已达到史无前例的水平。

4.probe 探测

They will probe deeply into the matter.

他们将深入调查这件事。

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