29 Jun 2015CERC carries out air quality assessments for poultry-litter-fuelled boilers

CERC is working with Wiser Environment to assess the air quality impact of a series of planned poultry-litter-fuelled boilers on farms in the UK. The work follows last year's amendment of the EU animal by-products regulations to allow the use of poultry litter as a fuel. The assessments use ADMS 5 to calculate pollutant concentrations at residential and ecological receptors around the farms.

19 Jun 2015ADMS User Group Meeting held in Beijing 2-3 June 2015

In partnership with the Laboratory of Atmospheric Physics and Chemistry (LAPC) of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), CERC China held a two-day ADMS UGM in Beijing, on the 2-3rd June 2015. ADMS UGM was well attended by over 70 delegates across China.

Presentations included: ADMS's application in large environmental projects internationally; applications of ADMS-Airport to Beijing Capital international Airport; ADMS-Urban nested with regional models; modelling of tunnels and canyons and emergency release modelling.

David Carruthers, CERC's Director who presented at the UGM, commented: "CERC is very pleased to share with ADMS users in China our experiences and technical expertise, at a time when air pollution and urban smog is most relevant to people's daily life."

There are currently nearly 200 licence holders of the ADMS suite of models in China.

12 Jun 2015EMIT 3.4 released

A new version of EMIT is now available. EMIT is a simple, fast and comprehensive tool for compiling, editing and analysing emissions inventories. EMIT is invaluable in many situations, for example when carrying out emission calculations across large urban areas when dispersion modelling with ADMS-Urban, and when predicting the impact of Low Emission Zones on emissions of toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases.

The new features in EMIT 3.4 include:

• Updated road traffic emission factors and fleet data based on the UK National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory 2014 and Defra's Emission Factor Toolkit version 6.0.
• Source apportionment: quantifying the contributions from particular road vehicles, such as diesel cars, to emissions and concentrations (when used with ADMS-Urban). The apportionment is fully user-defined; for example emissions can be apportioned by EURO class or vehicle size.
• Greatly improved speed: large calculations now take minutes rather than hours.

For more information about the new features please see the What's New in EMIT 3.4? guide. EMIT users with current support contracts will shortly receive the new version free of charge. Further information and prices can be found on our website.

8 Jun 2015ADMS 5.1 released

A new version of ADMS 5 (version 5.1) is now available.

ADMS 5 simulates a wide range of buoyant and passive releases of pollutants to the atmosphere, either individually or in combination. Applications include planning and permitting, stack height assessment, odour modelling, environmental impact assessments and safety planning.

The new features in ADMS 5.1 include:

• A new ADMS Mapper, which can visualise terrain and roughness files alongside the source, output & buildings data; plot concentration & flow field output and visualise your data in 3D.
• Import & export facility for source, group, building and pollutant data. Export files are easy to manipulate in Excel and allow for easy transfer between model set-ups including direct merging with existing APL files.
• Quick manipulation of source group membership using right-click menus.
• Refinement to the plume visibility algorithms.
• The ability to run the calm conditions and complex terrain modules in the same run.
• Extended time-varying emissions input allowing a different profile for each day of the week.
• Post-processing options to generate new output covering a wide range of statistics without needing to re-run the model.

For more information about all the new features please see the What's New in ADMS 5.1? guide. ADMS 5 users with current support contracts will shortly receive the new version free of charge. Further information and prices can be found on our website.

9 Apr 2015CERC's Director appointed Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association Associate Editor

CERC's Managing and Technical Director, Dr David Carruthers, has been appointed the position of Associate Editor of the Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association. This international journal is one of the oldest peer-reviewed, technical environmental journals in the world, publishing policy-relevant air and waste management science and technology manuscripts.