Articles

• The utilization strucutre of thermal water wells and its unexploited capacities in Hungary

  36-52

  Balázs Kulcsár

  Views:

  75

  In order to mitigate Hungary’s vulnerability in energy supply and accomplish the renewable energy production targets, it is essential to discover exploitable alternative opportunities for energy production and step up the utilization of the available capacities. The purpose of this publication is to map up the utilization structure of the existing Hungarian thermal water wells, describe its changes over the past 16 years, reveal the associated reasons and define the unutilized well capacities that may contribute to increasing the exploitation of geothermal heat by municipalities. The studies have been conducted in view of the Cadaster of Thermal Water Wells of Hungary compiled in 1994, the well cadasters kept by the regional water management directorates, as well as the data of the digital thermal water cadaster of 2010. The calculations performed for the evaluation of data have been based on the ratios and respective utilization areas of the existing wells. In the past 150 years, nearly 1500 thermal water wells have been drilled for use by a broad range of economic operations. The principal goals of constructing thermal water wells encompass the use of water in balneology, water and heat supply to the agriculture, hydrocarbon research and the satisfaction of municipal water demands. In 1994, 26% of the facilities was operated as baths, 21% was used by agriculture, while 13% and 12% served communal and waterworks supply, respectively. Then in 2010, 31% of thermal water wells was continued to be used for the water supply of bathing establishments, followed by 20% for agricultural use, 19% for utilization by waterworks, 11% for observation purposes and 10% for communal use. During the 16 years between 1994 and 2010, the priorities of utilization often changed, new demands emerged in addition to the former utilization goals of thermal water wells. The economic landscape and changes in consumer habits have transformed the group of consumers, which is the reason why most of the resources have remained untapped. In 2010, 13% of all the thermal water wells were closed in, but could potentially be utilized; these capacities could be deployed for the satisfaction of the heat demands of municipal public institutions.

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  82

• Household heating in the light of climate change

  53-65

  Mónika Paládi

  József Tóth

  Views:

  41

  Greenhouse gas emissions resulting from anthropogenic activities play a significant role in climate change. The residential heating should be mentioned one of the main polluting source of greenhouse gases.This paper aims to give a comprehensive view about the amount of CO2 emission as well as objectives and strategies for reduction the GHG emission. In addition, we illustrate the example of an average Hungarian family house (100 m2 ), that biomass-based energy production what extent can reduce the current very high degree carbon dioxide emissions. We prepared investment analysis, as to what kind of ecological and economic benefits may result in heating modernization projects of a four-member family home. Additionally, a calculation method of CO2 emission from heating is demonstrated on the basis of IPPC report (2006); the role of biomass is explained in heating; furthermore I give an overview analysis about the significance of forests for reduction of CO2 concentration.

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  38

• Reduction of environmental impacts of heat pump usage with special regard on systems with borehole heat exchangers

  66-77

  Tamás Buday

  Views:

  81

  Ground coupled heat pump systems are suitable for extracting subsurface thermal energy with low environmental impact especially regarding CO2 emission. The efficiency of such systems strongly depends on the temperature of the ambient heat (thus underground substrate). This temperature usually changes unfavourably during operation and efficiency becomes lower than the nominal value. Appropriate installation and operation cause lower temperature drop, thus higher efficiency. Consequently, it means lower electricity demand, therefore lower specific CO2 emission, more CO2 saving and lower operation costs. Quantitative analysis with 21 heat extraction models presented in the paper points out that the differences could be significant (up to 30 %), in addition using bivalent mode the environmental impact of the installation or/and operation can be reduced as well, especially using biomass firing as auxiliary heating.

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  158

• Landscape shape index, as a potencial indicator of urban development in Hungary

  78-88

  Péter Gyenizse

  Zita Bognár

  Szabolcs Czigány

  Tibor Elekes

  Views:

  418

  The study of settlement shape, morphology and structure is a classic topic of urban geography. Since the 1960s multiple shape indices have been developed. Urban patterns were then compared with geometric forms or, alternatively their temporal changes were tracked and analysed. In the current study we adapted the landscape shape index (LSI) to analyse the historical shape development of eight Hungarian cities. The LSI is capable to demonstrate the functional and mutual relationship between the developed area and their immediate physical and natural environment. Over the past 230 years the land area of the studied cities has increased manifold for several reasons: on average, an areal increase of 10.4 to 24.5 was observed for the eight settlements, while their perimeter increased by 8.8 to 30.3 times. Simultaneously with their size growth, the studied cities are characterized by an increasingly fragmented and dissected ground plans. Consequently, due to the longer border between the developed areas and the adjacent natural zones, urban areas have become increasingly sensitive to environmental effects over the past century, while mutual ecological and environmental interactions has also considerably increased between the adjoining zones. In general, cities of hilly and low-mountain areas had the highest LSIs, whereas cities located on relatively flat grounds had comparatively low LSIs. We also investigated the rank correlation of the historical change of LSI of the studied settlements. Cities of high positive correlations (> 0.9) were classified into two major categories. Miskolc, Pécs, Szeged and Kecskemét belonged to the group of higher LSIs, whereas Székesfehérvár and Nyíregyháza fell into the class of medium LSIs and the third category included Debrecen and Győr, cities of low (< 0.9) LSIs. Based on the temporal trends of the LSIs, our results provide applicable information for decision makers in order to monitor, manage and track their investments, city management policies and infrastructural development strategies.

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