Hey guys,
Today I want to address more environmental dispersion
models. There are a ton of models out there for use by every industry to
predict where emissions will go.
A website called lakes environmental offers software that
calculates the dispersion in air, tracks emissions for compliance, tracks
emergency release, and calculates the risk involved with each of these.
I recently was able to tour a garbage burning plant where my
uncle is employed as an operator. The ash and emissions from the burning are
all monitored for levels of certain toxins. This stuff goes through many
filters and gets treated with many chemicals, the list was too long for me to
remember.
In the case that something went wrong with the filtering and
treatment system, a program such as one of the ones offered by lakes
environmental would be used to see who was exposed to say excessive amounts of
mercury, one of the toxins that is filtered out.
In the nuclear industry, we would use the models to see who
was at the wrong end of some terrible irradiation or if the radiation was
actually bad enough to worry about.
For ground dispersion, there are a bunch of free software
from, http://igwmc.mines.edu/software/freeware_list.html.
These models range from large spill accidents to small discharge from or into a
well. There are way to many for me to go through all of them. These tools are
out there for industrial use and they are being used by many industries.
Hope this was somewhat interesting, I had fun looking into
this!
The Nuke Cow
It's great to see that it isn't just the nuclear industry using these models! It's important for every industry to keep track of and be responsible for the things they emit into the environment. Ultimately protecting people and the planet is a priority!
ReplyDeleteI showed my dad, who does environmental protection work for the city of Jacksonville, that list of software and he says that he's used some of them before and that each has their own specific application or affiliation. He is involved in monitoring the effect emissions from businesses, like the one described in your blog post, have on the quality of ozone, etc.
ReplyDeleteThis was really interesting. It was cool to be able to see how many different types of modeling softwares there are out there to help monitor emissions. It is also good to know that other industries are keeping track of their emissions as well, not just nuclear.
ReplyDelete