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Around 70% of Brazil's energy comes from hydroelectricity.
巴西70%的能源来自水力发电。
Golden mussels can be found in almost 40% of hydropower plants in Brazil.
巴西境内40%的水电站都已经出现了金贻贝。
when clearing out mussels, the generator units have to be turned off.
清理贻贝时，必须要关闭发电设施。
That alone causes all the plans an annual loss of around 120 million US dollars.
仅仅这一点，每年就会给所有发电站造成总计1.2亿美元的损失。
But - a gene-altering strategy called gene drive changes that.
不过一种称为基因驱动的技术改变了这种情况。
When these modified mussels mate with wild mussels, the gene-drive strategy ensures that all not just half of its offspring inherit the infertility gene copy.
等这些基因改造金贻贝与野生金贻贝交配后，我们就可以通过基因驱动技术确保它们的所有后代，而非半数后代，遗传到不育基因。
Eventually, when two modified mussels mate their offspring becomes completely sterile, incapable of reproducing, and gradually causing the entire population to die out.
最终，当两个基因改造金贻贝交配时，它们的后代就会彻底丧失生育能力，不再有后代，最终令金贻贝彻底消亡。
Right now, the project is in the prototype construction phase where scientists are trying to create the genetically modified mussels in the lab.
目前，该项目已进入原型建设阶段，科学家正在实验里对金贻贝进行基因改造。
The solution has not yet been applied in nature.
这种解决方案还没有在自然界中实施。
But researchers estimate that initially, once the modified mussels are released in the wild, it would take two years for infertile mussels to make up 50% of the population, and 10 years to reach 90%.
但据科研人员估计，一旦将改造过的金贻贝投入野外环境，大约两年后，失去生育能力的改造金贻贝将会占到总量的50%左右，10年后的占比将达到90%。
