Incineration has been used widely for waste disposal, including household, hazardous, and medical wasteâ€"but there is increasing public concern over the benefits of combusting the waste versus the health risk from pollutants emitted during combustion. Waste Incineration and Public Health informs the emerging debate with the most up-to-date information available on incineration, pollution, and human healthâ€"along with expert conclusions and recommendations for further research and improvement of such areas as risk communication. The committee provides details on: Processes involved in incineration and how contaminants are released. Environmental dynamics of contaminants and routes of human exposure. Tools and approaches for assessing possible human health effects. Scientific concerns pertinent to future regulatory actions. The book also examines some of the social, psychological, and economic factors that affect the communities where incineration takes place and addresses the problem of uncertainty and variation in predicting the health effects of incineration processes.

Although there is a large body of research literature pertaining to the environmental implications of combustion processes, this book is the first to present a concise treatment of fundamental issues that can be quickly and easily used by entry-level researchers. The book is arranged so that it logically flows from fundamentals to pollutants, through theory, and on to modeling. Chapters cover combustion fundamentals, gaseous pollution, and heterogeneous combustion. Combustion theory in the form of Activation Energy Asymptotics is included for the lay reader, followed by a presentation of reduced mechanisms in the context of burning, a topic of environmental significance. Turbulent combustion modeling is also discussed.

This book aims to strengthen the knowledge base dealing with Air Pollution. The book consists of 21 chapters dealing with Air Pollution and its effects in the fields of Health, Environment, Economy and Agricultural Sources. It is divided into four sections. The first one deals with effect of air pollution on health and human body organs. The second section includes the Impact of air pollution on plants and agricultural sources and methods of resistance. The third section includes environmental changes, geographic and climatic conditions due to air pollution. The fourth section includes case studies concerning of the impact of air pollution in the economy and development goals, such as, indoor air pollution in México, indoor air pollution and millennium development goals in Bangladesh, epidemiologic and economic impact of natural gas on indoor air pollution in Colombia and economic growth and air pollution in Iran during development programs. In this book the authors explain the definition of air pollution, the most important pollutants and their different sources and effects on humans and various fields of life. The authors offer different solutions to the problems resulting from air pollution.

Covering each aspect of an incineration facility, from contaminant receipt and storage to stack discharge and dispersion, this reference explores the operation and evaluation of incineration systems for hazardous and non-hazardous gaseous, liquid, sludge, and solid wastes. Highlighting breakthroughs in air pollution control, the book discusses advances in materials handling, waste processing, refractory and materials engineering, combustion technology, and energy recovery to reduce and control toxins and pollutants in the environment. It includes a disk containing spreadsheets for practical analyses of waste characteristics and combustion systems.

The aim of this book is to support industry in their effort to design environ mentally friendly products. The book comprises a method and a manual for life cycle assessment of products and it includes examples of how industrial companies have used the method succesfully in the design of more environ mentally friendly products. The method has been developed over a period of four years under the Danish EDIP programme (Environmental Design of Industrial Products) by a team representing the Technical University of Denmark, five Danish industrial companies, the Confederation of Danish Industries and the Dan ish Environmental Protection Agency. The method is coheherent and opera tional and it is well documented by a large variety of examples including five different complex electromechanical products. It guides the user through the inventory and assessment of environmental impacts of products and shows how various products and design solutions during product development can be compared. The method is supported by a base of data for the assessments of environmental impacts and is thus designed as a tool which will make it possible for the user to start on life cycle assessment at once. The book also guides the user through the identification of environmental improvement potentials in the product and the setting of environmental specifications with in the general concept of overall commercial optimization. The partnership between industry, authorities and university has been highly fruitful.

Each new generation of commercial aircraft produces less noise and fewer emissions per passenger-kilometer (or ton-kilometer of cargo) than the previous generation. However, the demand for air transportation services grows so quickly that total aircraft noise and emissions continue to increase. Meanwhile, federal, state, and local noise and air quality standards in the United States and overseas have become more stringent. It is becoming more difficult to reconcile public demand for inexpensive, easily accessible air transportation services with concurrent desires to reduce noise, improve local air quality, and protect the global environment against climate change and depletion of stratospheric ozone. This situation calls for federal leadership and strong action from industry and government. U.S. government, industry, and universities conduct research and develop technology that could help reduce aircraft noise and emissions-but only if the results are used to improve operational systems or standards. For example, the (now terminated) Advanced Subsonic Technology Program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) generally brought new technology only to the point where a system, subsystem model, or prototype was demonstrated or could be validated in a relevant environment. Completing the maturation process-by fielding affordable, proven, commercially available systems for installation on new or modified aircraft-was left to industry and generally took place only if industry had an economic or regulatory incentive to make the necessary investment. In response to this situation, the Federal Aviation Administration, NASA, and the Environmental Protection Agency, asked the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board of the National Research Council to recommend research strategies and approaches that would further efforts to mitigate the environmental effects (i.e., noise and emissions) of aviation. The statement of task required the Committee on Aeronautics Research and Technology for Environmental Compatibility to assess whether existing research policies and programs are likely to foster the technological improvements needed to ensure that environmental constraints do not become a significant barrier to growth of the aviation sector.

The United States and China are the world's top two energy consumers and, as of 2010, the two largest economies. Consequently, they have a decisive role to play in the world's clean energy future. Both countries are also motivated by related goals, namely diversified energy portfolios, job creation, energy security, and pollution reduction, making renewable energy development an important strategy with wide-ranging implications. Given the size of their energy markets, any substantial progress the two countries make in advancing use of renewable energy will provide global benefits, in terms of enhanced technological understanding, reduced costs through expanded deployment, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to conventional generation from fossil fuels. Within this context, the U.S. National Academies, in collaboration with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE), reviewed renewable energy development and deployment in the two countries, to highlight prospects for collaboration across the research to deployment chain and to suggest strategies which would promote more rapid and economical attainment of renewable energy goals. Main findings and concerning renewable resource assessments, technology development, environmental impacts, market infrastructure, among others, are presented. Specific recommendations have been limited to those judged to be most likely to accelerate the pace of deployment, increase cost-competitiveness, or shape the future market for renewable energy. The recommendations presented here are also pragmatic and achievable.