Environment & Energy
Our tasks
With our work, we contribute to making technologies safer and protecting humans and the environment from potential damage. We also use our models and simulation codes for risk predictions in other areas - e.g. the spread of coronavirus.
Thematic focal points for us are the safe use of renewable energies and the safe handling and disposal of pollutants.
Our thematic fields are:
- Power to Gas
- Drinking water management
- Geothermal energy
- handling of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear hazardous materials (CBRN)
- spread of pollutants and viruses via aerosols
Project highlights Environment and Energy
Mercury is toxic. Nevertheless, this heavy metal is used all over the world in a wide variety of products. In the EU, 40 tonnes of mercury are processed every year for the production of amalgam for dental fillings alone. The EU Commission now wants to further restrict its use. Scientists at GRS have supported them in these efforts and explored the possibilities.
In the current Covid 19 pandemic, airborne aerosols that contain viruses are considered to be an important transmission route, especially in insufficiently ventilated rooms. To be able to make a sound assessment of the related risk of infection and to derive appropriate recommendations for action, the aerosol behaviour as well as representative ambient conditions must be considered in detail and realistically. Within the framework of the AeroCoV research project, scientists of GRS have applied the COCOSYS simulation code – which was developed and validated for the analysis of accidents and severe accidents in containments of nuclear power plants – for the first time for calculating the dispersion of SARS-CoV-2 aerosols.
According to the Federal Network Agency, renewable energies in Germany now cover around 31 percent of electricity consumption. Many of the renewable energies feed electricity into the grid depending on wind and weather. When times of high feed-in coincide with low power consumption, there is an oversupply. Since the power grids currently cannot accommodate this oversupply, wind and solar power plants have to be shut down from time to time.