Burning coal in power plants produces a waste product called coal ash, a material that contains small amounts of potentially harmful chemicals. Environmentalists in the United States are concerned about the damage such harmful chemicals may be doing to the environment and suggest that the United States government should create new, much stricter regulations for handling and storing coal ash.
However, representatives of power companies take the opposite view: they argue that new regulations are unnecessary and might actually have negative consequences. They use the following arguments to support their position
Regulations Exist
First, power company representatives point out that effective environmental regulations already exist. For example, one very important regulation requires companies to use liner—special material that prevents coal ash components from leaking into the soil and contaminating the surrounding environment. Companies that dispose of coal ash in disposal ponds or landfills must use liner in every new pond or landfill they build.
Concerns About Recycling Coal Ash
Second, some analysts predict that creating very strict rules for storing and handling coal ash might discourage the recycling of coal ash into other products. Currently, a large portion of coal ash generated by power plants is recycled: it is used, for example, in building materials such as concrete and bricks. Recycling coal ash reduces the need to dispose of it in other ways and presents no environmental danger. However, if new, stricter rules are adopted for handling coal ash, consumers may become concerned that recycled coal ash products are just too dangerous, and may stop buying the products.
Increased Cost
Finally, strict new regulations would result in a significant increase in disposal and handling costs for the power companies—perhaps as much as ten times the current costs Power companies would be forced to increase the price of electricity, which would not be welcomed by the general public.
Based on the given materials, the article as well as the lecturer discusses consequences of applying stricter rule for handling coal ash, a product produced after burning coal. The author asserts that using such restriction may affect adversely and does not work. That being said, the lecturer provide several ideas to repudiate this claim.
Initially, it is alleged in the reading that rules for environmental regulation such as implementing liner in new ponds already exists. However, the lecturer asserts that since using a liner is only mandatory for new landfills, it is not enough therefor stricter regulations are needed. She gives an example of water contamination as a result of leaking in one of the old landfills. So companies should use liner in old landfills as well as the new ones.
Second, the writer proclaims that stricer rules might leads to decline to produce recycled materials from coal ash because it might concerne consumers. Yet again, the speaker underscores that other materials exists that are more dangerous but still people use products that are produced from them. She alludes to mercury which is a dagerous material and despite existence of strict rules, products made from recycled mercury are sold successfully.
The last point of contention between the listening and the reading passages is rise in cost. The author states that new regulation will cause a huge increase in electricity bills. On the other hand, The lecturer claims that albeit it can cost a lot for companies but in the end regulations will increase each household bill for electricity by one percent which is not a lot. As a result this claim is not true since people are willing to pay that morsel increase in prices in order to have a cleaner environment.
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Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, however, may, second, so, still, well, as to, such as, as a result, as well as, on the other hand
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 10.4613686534 124% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 7.0 5.04856512141 139% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 12.0772626932 108% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 22.412803532 89% => OK
Preposition: 32.0 30.3222958057 106% => OK
Nominalization: 7.0 5.01324503311 140% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1483.0 1373.03311258 108% => OK
No of words: 292.0 270.72406181 108% => OK
Chars per words: 5.07876712329 5.08290768461 100% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.13376432452 4.04702891845 102% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.69888002111 2.5805825403 105% => OK
Unique words: 167.0 145.348785872 115% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.571917808219 0.540411800872 106% => OK
syllable_count: 460.8 419.366225166 110% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 5.0 3.25607064018 154% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 1.25165562914 80% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.51434878587 66% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 2.5761589404 39% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 20.0 21.2450331126 94% => OK
Sentence length SD: 38.010806734 49.2860985944 77% => OK
Chars per sentence: 105.928571429 110.228320801 96% => OK
Words per sentence: 20.8571428571 21.698381199 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.28571428571 7.06452816374 103% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 4.33554083885 161% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 4.45695364238 45% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.27373068433 117% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.12410942134 0.272083759551 46% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0398927389557 0.0996497079465 40% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0519602130885 0.0662205650399 78% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0792310203693 0.162205337803 49% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0708758696341 0.0443174109184 160% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.9 13.3589403974 97% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 51.18 53.8541721854 95% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.1 11.0289183223 101% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.18 12.2367328918 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.74 8.42419426049 104% => OK
difficult_words: 76.0 63.6247240618 119% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.5 10.7273730684 107% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.0 10.498013245 95% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.2008830022 107% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 Out of 30
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.