Decision Support Tool for Remedial Energy Management
Jan Pavlovič, Katarina Mahutová · 2005
Years ago, people did not understand how certain wastes might affect human health and the environment. As a result, thousands of uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites were created. Treatment of polluted sites is complicated, expensive and energy consuming process. Nowadays the modern computer science brings us possibilities of environmental mathematics modeling. Decision Support tool such as out project belongs to this kind of possibilities. This project started as an international cooperation between Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center, US EPA and Faculty of Informatics, Czech Republic. The decision support tool is designed as a JSP/Servlet web portal. Since we are using modern developing frameworks based on programming language Java we are able to design whole architecture to comply with all security restrictions demanded (from USA partner) by todays standards. System is based on Model View Controller architecture. So it is easy to build standalone webstart version of program that users can download to their computer and then enjoy all advantages of Java webstart application. The core of the system consists of mature mathematical equations created by experts on chemistry, physics, mathematics and environment. The main contribution of the system is simplifying theory to the level acceptable for users without lowering the efficiency of contained theory. User is filling the inputs and then he can study the outputs. That means several graphs of energy comparison of treatment technologies, graphs of produced pollution and also several graphs of energy equivalents, which enable the user to imagine what the amount of consumed energy represents in everyday life. The treatment process itself can by divided into several phases. One of the early phases which is our project focused on is choosing treatment technology. According to input data about polluted site it helps the user to identify the energetically most profitable technology for treating his site. The system has others benefits as well. It is not likely that many people will switch the technology. The reason is that the initial part of the cleaning method is really expensive and few people will be willing to cancel the process that is already running. However, the system offers the user a set of techniques, which can fairly improve treating technology he is using. Other outputs of the system are Global warming potential (and EO 12313 directive graphs). Whole technological potential of the system is computation of over 130 treatment technologies on 500 contaminants, which means millions of combinations.