Search

INTRODUCTION: Production of emissions from small heat sources burning solid fuels in households in Slovakia is relatively high. At the present time, the operation of such devices are neither controlled nor regulated properly and effectively. OBJECTIVES: This work presents a research analysis of current monitoring and maintenance procedures and certified norms for all solid-fuel small-scale heating systems utilized in households. METHODS: The research compared data from over 13 countries in the European Union, evaluating information regarding certified emission limits, efficiency levels, normalized monitoring procedures for both fuel standards and heating system performance. A proposition is therefore presented for a new monitoring and inspection guide for solid-fuel heating systems in Slovak Republic households, where regulations, such as Ecodesign or the EN 305-5, were integrated. RESULTS: Using a mathematical-statistical model, the implementation of the proposed regulations brings an emission saving of almost 140 tons per 10,000 inhabitants for both central and local heating systems. CONCLUSION: The study demonstrated substantial opportunity in decreasing operation cost, prolongation of product lifetime, and last but not least, the reduction of health risks of local citizens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At this time, more than 58.4 % of the total amount of oil productions in Iran is consumed in the transportation section. Different fuel saving initiatives and approaches such as the fuel economy standards and labels program for motor vehicles in the transportation section have been applied in many developed countries. This work investigates the influence of executing the fuel economy standard program on the fuel saving and its effects on the environment. The calculation of the standards program is done consider to the data of motor vehicles in Iran. It is found that by implementing the program around 3.81 billion liters of fuel is expected to be saved, from 2013 to 2018. Also, it is estimated that the emission reduction of some gases such as CO, CO, and NO is equal to 7.35 million ton, 2.54, and 1.2 ton, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the ecological benefits analysis of fuel E-85, where the virtual simulation of european homologation test NEDC was used for. The base of the simulation forms the motor characteristics measured on the test bed. In the second step the same characteristics are measured, when using fuel E-85. By reason that, the motor burning of E-85. The special program, which was developed by the Department of Vehicles and Ground Transport at the Czech University of Live Sciences Prague, is able to determine the specific production of individual emission components and fuel consumption of one kilometre traveled (0.6214 mi.) on the motor characteristics and course of speed in the driving cycle NEDC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nanometallic iron and aluminium, along with hydrogen and electricity, are among the proposed alternatives to the petroleum-based fuels for future transportation. The advantages of the metallic fuels appear to be high volumetric energy densities and zero greenhouse gas emissions during the operation of the vehicle. However, nanometallic fuels do not exist in nature, and a well-to-wheel analysis of the fuel manufacture-utilization system is required to quantify the energy consumption and assess the true environmental impact of the proposed alternative. The three-component nanometallic fuel system consisting of a metal production process, a nanoparticle formulation process and the metal combustion process is analysed in this paper. The energy balance and the environmental impact are estimated for nanometallic iron and aluminium based systems. The sustainability of once-through systems that do not involve recycle of combustion products is questionable because of resource limitations. A viable system for satisfying the transportation fuel demands will involve the reduction and recycle of the combustion products. A comparison of these nanometallic fuels with gasoline and hydrogen indicates that nanometallic fuels are the least efficient, with primary energy consumption greater than 11 MJ km-1 compared to 0.625 MJ km-1 for gasoline and 8.6 MJ km-1 for hydrogen. The nanometallic fuels will also have the most severe impact of the three, with CO2-equivalent emissions of 13.44 billion tons year-1 for iron and 21.1 billion tons year-1 for aluminium as compared to approximately 0.8 billion tons year-1 for gasoline. These emissions from nanometallic fuels are at least an order-of-magnitude higher than those for gasoline and hydrogen. The results of the analysis emphasize the need for well-to-wheel assessment for determining the true impact of technologies proposed as replacements for the current technologies. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We used a Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) image from the 2011 Wallow fire in Arizona, USA, in combination with field data to assess different methods for determining fire severity. These include the normalised burn ratio (NBR), the differenced NBR (dNBR), the relative dNBR (RdNBR) and the burned fraction (BF) estimated by spectral mixture analysis (SMA). The Geo Composite Burn Index (GeoCBI) and vegetation mortality data were used as ground truth. Of all the remotely sensed measures evaluated the dNBR had the best performance (GeoCBI-dNBR R[sup 2] = 0.84), which supports the operational use of the dNBR for post-fire management. Of the other remotely sensed measures, the SMA-derived BF also had moderately high correlations with the GeoCBI (R[sup 2] = 0.66). Both approaches demonstrated their usefulness for refining modelled CC values, however, the SMA approach has the advantage of providing transferable quantitative estimates without the need for calibration with field data. The carbon emission estimates that included fire severity were more than 50% lower than the estimate derived from modelling alone. These results suggest that for certain fire types, especially mixed-severity fires, current emission estimates are significantly overestimated, which will affect global carbon emission estimates from wildfires. Traditional remote sensing approaches to assess fire severity provide information for post-fire management; however, they do not provide a useful approach to adjust combustion completeness (CC) and carbon emissions. We show a remotely sensed approach that provides a measure of fire severity that can be used to refine carbon emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses California Air Resources Board (CARB) regulations that limit greenhouse-gas emissions from transportation fuels. This low-carbon fuel standard requires fuel providers to accomplish a 10-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the 10-year period from 2010 to 2020. The rule requires life-cycle accounting, envisions reliance on fuel blending, and includes an emission trading system.