the increasing production and use of fossil fuels increase the probability of soil source contamination by oil and petroleum products, and pose a hazard to life. there are over 43,000 chemical contaminated sites in canada and usa, with 2,200 of them classified as high risk. in the us, over $10 billion are spent annually on the cleanup of contaminated sites. the primary objective of this study w...

Energy use and greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions in rainfed canola production in north eastern Iran were analyzed to find measures to reduce energy use and GHG emissions. Four production scenarios, i.e. a high-input, a low-input, a better crop management and a usual scenario, evaluated. All activities and production processes were monitored and recorded over three consecutive years. The usua...

Gas hydrate growth kinetics was studied at a pressure of 90 bars to investigate the effect of temperature, initial water content, stirring rate, and reactor size in stirred semi-batch autoclave reactors. The mixing energy during hydrate growth was estimated by logging the power consumed. The theoretical model by Garcia-Ochoa and Gomez for estimation of the mass transfer parameters in stirred ta...

OBJECTIVE To assess the associations between diarrhoea and types of water sources, total quantity of water consumed and the quantity of improved water consumed in rapidly growing, highly populated urban areas in developing countries. DESIGN Cross-sectional analysis using population-representative secondary data obtained from an interview survey conducted by the Asian Development Bank for the ...

The rapid consumption of petroleum deposits and the escalating air pollution problems caused by burning fossil fuels have driven the global research community to look for cleaner and renewable energy resources. Albeit not a primary energy source, hydrogen is an ideal energy carrier. It almost triples the gravimetric heat of combustion of gasoline (120 MJ kg 1 vs. 44.5 MJ kg ). More importantly,...

The ability of an Aeromonas hydrophila isolate obtained from filtered river water to grow at low substrate concentrations was studied in batch experiments with tap water supplied with low concentrations of substrates. Growth was assessed by colony count determinations. The isolate only multiplied in the used tap water (2 to 3 mg of dissolved organic carbon per liter) after the addition of a sma...

This paper focuses on the amount of diesel consumption as one of the non-renewable energy sources consumed by the agricultural machinery and water pumps in wheat and corn farms in Dire County,Kermanshah Province, Iran. The population of the study was determined by Bartlett table. Stratified random sampling method and census was used for the selection of respondents. The sample was composed of 2...

This report addresses problems associated with U.S. fuel cell vehicle production and a limited platinum supply. Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cells, which use a platinum catalyst, could place strain on the platinum market if fuel cell vehicles are widely produced. We developed a dynamic hypothesis, identified causal relationships, and created a system dynamics model in iThink. Based o...

This paper presents an method for heat rate monitoring of power plants which employs a true “systems approach”. As an ultimate monitoring parameter, derived from Second Law concepts, it quantifies system losses in terms of fuel consumption by individual components and processes. If electricity is to be produced with the least un-productive fuel consumption, then thermodynamic losses must be und...