(单词翻译:单击)
Jeff carpoff was a good mechanic. But as a businessman, he struggled.
杰夫·卡波夫是个优秀的修理工。但作为一名商人，他举步维艰。
In the two decades since high school, he’d lost one repair shop after another, filed for personal bankruptcy, and watched a lender foreclose on the small house in a California refinery town where he’d lived with his wife and two young kids.
高中毕业后的二十年里，他亏掉了一家又一家的维修店，申请了个人破产，看着贷款机构取消了加州炼油厂镇一座小房子的赎回权，那里是他与妻子以及两个孩子的住所。
By 2007, he was 36, jobless, and adrift.
2007年，他36岁，没有工作，四处漂泊。
Yet there, at his life’s lowest, the remarkable happened.
然而，在他人生最低潮的时候，奇迹发生了。
A contraption he’d rigged up in his driveway—a car trailer decked with solar panels and a heavy battery—got the attention of people with real money.
他在自家车道上安装的一个精巧装置——一个装有太阳能电池板和重型电池的汽车拖车——引起了有钱人的注意。
Carpoff could scarcely have imagined it.
卡波夫几乎想象不到。
He’d never gone to college and had no experience in green technology. His invention, he thought, was “crazy, harebrained.”
他从未上过大学，也没有绿色科技方面的经验。他认为自己的发明“愚蠢、古怪”。
But investors saw the makings of a clean-energy revolution.
但投资者看到了开启一场清洁能源革命的曙光。
For decades, there was basically one way to rush power to places without electricity: the portable diesel generator.
几十年来，基本上只有一种方法可以把电力输送到没有电的地方: 便携式柴油发电机。
It kept equipment running and lights on at construction sites, outdoor events, movie sets, disaster zones.
便携式柴油发电机保证了建筑工地、户外活动、电影布景以及灾区的设备运行和照明效果。
But diesel generators ate the ozone layer; warmed the planet; and caused smog, acid rain, and possibly cancer, on top of their noise, smell, and fuel cost.
但是，柴油发电机破坏臭氧层; 导致地球变暖; 除噪音、气味和燃料成本外，还会产生雾霾、酸雨，可能还会引起癌症。
Carpoff’s machine—a solar generator on wheels—was a sun-fueled alternative. He called it the Solar Eclipse.
卡波夫的机器——带轮子的太阳能发电机——以太阳能为燃料，是柴油发电机的替代品。他将其称之为“日食”。
The design was so simple that it was a wonder no one seemed to have thought of it before.
这个设计如此简单，以前似乎没有人有过这样的想法，简直是个奇迹。
Carpoff was a paunchy man with blue eyes and apple cheeks—a “big chipmunk,” as a colleague called him—who gulped rather than spit his chewing tobacco and spent Sundays watching NASCAR.
卡波夫这个男人蓝眼睛，脸颊圆鼓鼓，大腹便便——一个同事称他为“大花栗鼠”——他咀嚼烟草时总是吞下而不是吐出来，每个周日都要观看纳斯卡(全美运动汽车竞赛协会)比赛。
In March 2011, he was singing the national anthem at a local baseball game when he got a text that he’d made his first major sale: The paint company Sherwin-Williams had bought 192 of his generators, for nearly $29 million.
2011年3月，在当地的一场棒球比赛上，他唱着国歌，突然收到一条短信，说他完成了第一笔大买卖: 涂料公司宣伟以近2900万美元的价格购买了他发明的192台发电机。
Twenty-nine frickin’ million. It reduced him to tears.
2900万的巨款。这使他流下了眼泪。
That’s how Carpoff told the story of the day his life changed.
这就是卡波夫讲述他的生活发生改变的那天的故事。
The millions of dollars in that first deal were like the drips before a downpour.
第一笔交易中的数百万美元也只是倾盆大雨前的雨滴。
Over the next eight years, blue-chip corporations such as U.S. Bank, Progressive Insurance, and Geico would buy thousands of Carpoff’s generators.
在接下来的8年里，美国银行、进步保险和政府雇员保险等蓝筹公司购买了数千台卡波夫的发电机。
Inc. magazine would call his company, DC Solar, a “renewable energy powerhouse” with a product “people clearly needed.”
《Inc. 》杂志将他的公司“DC太阳能”称为“可再生能源发电所”，生产“人们显然需要”的产品。
The Obama administration would make DC Solar a partner—alongside Amazon, Alphabet, and AT&T—in a national program to enlist tech in the fight against climate change.
奥巴马政府把“DC太阳能”与亚马逊、Alphabet和美国电话电报公司一起列为一项国家计划的合作伙伴，该计划旨在利用科技来应对气候变化。
