Fossil Fuel and Biofuel Boilers in Ukraine: Trends of Changes in Levelized Cost of Heat
An increase in the share of renewables in heat supply systems is a promising direction to reach sustainable development goals and decarbonization. Decision makers should consider various factors, including energy market prices, the availability of biofuels, boiler and auxiliary equipment costs, logistic costs, and the taxation system. In the European Union, the energy crisis causes a rapid increase in fossil fuel prices. Moreover, the use of fossil fuels results in greenhouse gas emissions, which threatens the achievement of sustainable development goals. We studied the influence of the delivery cost and the value of environmental tax rates on the levelized cost of heat. Low-capacity boiler…
The consequences of the inappropriate use of ventilation systems operating in indoor swimming pool conditions - analysis
Increasingly more leisure facilities, such as water parks or indoor swimming pools are being built in Poland nowadays. In order to ensure the air quality required by standards for such leisure facilities it is necessary to fit them with effectively functioning ventilation. For the removal of excess humidity, as well as chlorine ions occurring as a result of the disinfection of water as well as the carbon dioxide emitted by people using the facility, the ventilation system needs to be appropriately designed and efficient. For this reason, studies into the air quality in such facilities were undertaken. The paper presents the causes and consequences of the inappropriate operation and maintena…
Ground-Mounted Photovoltaic and Crop Cultivation: A Comparative Analysis
Human civilization depends on energy sources, mainly fossil fuels. An increase in the prices of fossil fuels and their exhaustibility limit economic growth. Carbon dioxide emission causes global environmental problems. Global crises (including COVID-19) have sharpened food and energy supply problems. The decentralized energy supply systems as well as the expedition of the application of renewable energy may solve these challenges. The economic shift to renewable power generation intensifies the competition between food crop production and green energy for land. This paper applied an open-source spatial-based model to quantify the solar power generation (the ground-mounted photovoltaic panel…
Optimization of ventilation system in the open office space
The paper presents the results of study into the air parameters in open space offices. As office workers spend about 1/3 of the day in such spaces, it is important to provide them with the right climate comfort, and that is determined, most importantly, by: the temperature and humidity of the air, quality of the air, and the concentration of CO2. Two objects of study were selected - both of them open space facilities, each with a different intensity of use. In the course of study, measurements were taken on the basis of which the distributions of temperature, humidity, and concentrations of CO2 in the entire volume of the space were determined. Also the empirical coefficients of CO2 emissio…
The Impact of Green Roofs on the Parameters of the Environment in Urban Areas—Review
This study presents the results of a review of publications conducted by researchers in a variety of climates on the implementation of ‘green roofs’ and their impact on the urban environment. Features of green roofs in urban areas have been characterized by a particular emphasis on: Filtration of air pollutants and oxygen production, reduction of rainwater volume discharged from roof surfaces, reduction of so-called ‘urban heat islands’, as well as improvements to roof surface insulation (including noise reduction properties). The review of the publications confirmed the necessity to conduct research to determine the coefficients of the impact of green roofs on the environment in the city c…
Modelling the Interaction between Air Pollutant Emissions and Their Key Sources in Poland
The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between key sources of air pollutant emissions (sources of energy production, factories which are particularly harmful to the environment, the fleets of cars, environmental protection expenditure) and the main environmental air pollution (SO2, NOx, CO and PM) in Poland. Models based on MLP neural networks were used as predictive models. Global sensitivity analysis was used to demonstrate the significant impact of individual network input variables on the output variable. To verify the effectiveness of the models created, the actual data were compared with the data obtained through modelling. Projected courses of changes in t…
Model research on the influence of green roofs on environmental parameters in urban agglomerations
The intensive development of urban agglomerations in Poland and other European countries has rendered the growth of biologically active areas more important with respect the quality of the urban environment. Taking the rapidly rising prices of plots in city centers into consideration, it is worth noting the vast surfaces of building roofs that can be used as biologically active areas. The term green roof is to be understood as an open, overgrown surface on a multilayer roof of a building. Green roofs can only be made on a planar surface with an inclination of 2% to 30%. In accordance with the type of usage, construction factors and maintenance requirements, green roofs are typically defined…
Spatial Succession for Degradation of Solid Multicomponent Food Waste and Purification of Toxic Leachate with the Obtaining of Biohydrogen and Biomethane
A huge amount of organic waste is generated annually around the globe. The main sources of solid and liquid organic waste are municipalities and canning and food industries. Most of it is disposed of in an environmentally unfriendly way since none of the modern recycling technologies can cope with such immense volumes of waste. Microbiological and biotechnological approaches are extremely promising for solving this environmental problem. Moreover, organic waste can serve as the substrate to obtain alternative energy, such as biohydrogen (H2) and biomethane (CH4). This work aimed to design and test new technology for the degradation of food waste, coupled with biohydrogen and biomethane prod…
Characteristic of Pseudomonas syringae pv. atrofaciens Isolated from Weeds of Wheat Field
The aim of this study was the identification of the causative agent of the basal glume rot of wheat Pseudomonas syringae pv. atrofaciens from the affected weeds in wheat crops, and determination of its virulent properties. Isolation of P. syringae pv. atrofaciens from weeds of wheat crops was carried out by classical microbiological methods. To identify isolated bacteria, their morphological, cultural, biochemical, and serological properties as well as fatty acids and Random Amplification of Polymorphic DNA (RAPD)-PCR (Polymerase chain reaction) profiles with the OPA-13 primer were studied. Pathogenic properties were investigated by artificial inoculation of wheat plants and weed plants, fr…
Air pollution in European countries and life expectancy—modelling with the use of neural network
Abstract The present paper discusses a novel methodology based on neural network to determine air pollutants’ correlation with life expectancy in European countries. The models were developed using historical data from the period 1992–2016, for a set of 20 European countries. The subject of the analysis included the input variables of the following air pollutants: sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, particulate matters, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and non-methane volatile organic compounds. Our main findings indicate that all the variables significantly affect life expectancy. Sensitivity of constructed neural networks to pollutants proved to be particularly important in …
Internal heat gain from different light sources in the building lighting systems
EU directives and the Construction Law have for some time required investors to report the energy consumption of buildings, and this has indeed caused low energy consumption buildings to proliferate. Of particular interest, internal heat gains from installed lighting affect the final energy consumption for heating of both public and residential buildings. This article presents the results of analyses of the electricity consumption and the luminous flux and the heat flux emitted by different types of light sources used in buildings. Incandescent light, halogen, compact fluorescent bulbs, and LED bulbs from various manufacturers were individually placed in a closed and isolated chamber, and t…
Optimisation of Heat Loss through Ventilation for Residential Buildings
This study presents the results of research on heat loss from various types of residential buildings through ventilation systems. Experimental research was done to analyse the effectiveness of ventilation systems of different types and determine the parameters of air discharged via the ventilation ducts. A model of heat loss from the discharge of exhaust air outside through air ducts has since been developed. Experiments were conducted on three experimental systems of building ventilation: gravitational, mechanical, and supply-exhaust ventilation systems with heat recovery. The proposed model dependencies were used to chart the daily fluctuations of the optimum multiplicity of air exchange …
The green roofs for reduction in the load on rainwater drainage in highly urbanised areas
AbstractRapid weather phenomena, particularly sudden and intense rainfall, have become a problem in urban areas in recent years. During heavy rainfall, urban rainwater drainage systems are unable to discharge huge amounts of runoff into collecting reservoirs, which usually results in local flooding. This paper presents attempts to forecast a reduction in the load on the rainwater drainage system through the implementation of green roofs in a case study covering two selected districts of Opole (Poland)—the Old Town and the City Centre. Model tests of extensive and intensive roofs were carried out, in order to determine the reduction of rainwater runoff from the roof surface for the site unde…