Task 5. Read the text and give Russian equivalents to the italicized words and expressions. Retell the text.

The Politics of Power

In 1956, when the Calder Hall nuclear reactor, in West Cumbria, was plugged into the national grid for the first time, nuclear power was seen as the fuel of the future: clean, cheap and potentially unlimited. In her dedication speech, the Queen said mankind was on "the threshold of a new age", thanks to Britain's "atomic scientists". It would have seemed incredible to the dignitaries present that day, that in the first decades of the 21st Century Britain would be looking increasingly to wind power and natural gas, imported from Russia, to provide its energy needs.

In the 1950s, coal was king. A vast nationalised industry kept the lights on, the factories running and hundreds of thousands of largely Labour-voting families in reliable work.

The arrival of North Sea oil in the mid 1970s was a welcome boost to a cash-strapped Labour government, turning the UK into a significant exporter of energy. But the politicians retained a tight grip on supply. Energy policy was seen as far too important to leave to the market.

All that changed in the 1980s, with the Conservative privatisation of oil, coal and electricity generation. The newly privatised power companies made a "dash for gas", building several new gas power stations and reducing their demand for coal. This heralded the start of a rapid decline of the UK's pits - leading eventually to the closure of all Scotland's mines and all but one in South Wales.

Gas was seen as a cleaner and cheaper alternative to coal, but the left suspected a Conservative plot to rein in the unions, in the wake of the 1984 miners' strike. Labour came to power in 1997 with a commitment to halt the "dash for gas" and creating a "level playing field" for coal and gas prices. But the moratorium was short-lived and the coal industry has continued to shrink.

There are currently 12 working pits - compared with 170 in 1984 - and the industry's long-term survival is under question. The government has said itremains committed to coal, which still provides about 32% of electricity production. But these days UK power stations are just as likely to get their supplies from Eastern Europe.

Consumers and energy producers will decide the future energy mix, with the government's role confined to setting long-term targets and policy. Declining reserves of North Sea gas and oil mean that by the end of the decade, the UK will be a net energy importer for the first time since the Industrial Revolution.

Ministers plan to step up imports of oil and gas, principally from Russia, in an effort to plug the gap. They also plan massively to increase investment in renewable energy, such as wind and tidal power, which ministers say will provide 20% of Britain's energy needs by 2020.

In 2003 BP signed a £3.6bn natural gas deal with Russia, transforming the UK, at a stroke, into that country's biggest foreign investor. The UK has also signed deals with Iran, Libya, Algeria and Iraq, and the government says it will "continue to engage with the Caspian, Middle East and African countries" to develop potential supplies.

But the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) has warned the UK could face power cuts in 20 years' time, because it will depend so heavily on foreign energy sources to produce its electricity. The institution says 80% of the gas needed to fuel British power stations will come from distant and "politically unstable" countries by then. UK energy policy, for so long a relatively uncontroversial area, looks set to climb back up the political agenda in the years ahead.