Szilárd Podruzsik

Risks and Opportunities of Sustainable Biomass and Biogas Production for the African Market

Almost all important natural resources – e.g. oil, diamonds, gold, platinum, coal, copper, ore, phosphate etc. – including rare earth metals for industries functioning in the international arena, are available on the African continent. Roughly 15% of the total world market of resources is in Africa. International interest in Africa is via the relatively political and economic stable countries of the ‘Africa 7’ – South Africa, Botswana, Morocco, Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt and Kenya. According to Doing Business Report and the World Bank, statistically, about 60% of the resources from agriculture in Africa are still reserves. Based on the international trends to support developing countries by establishing a market for biomass production, with the aim of advanced energy production, resource efficiency, emission reduction, it has to be balanced with the internationally supervised and important sector of food security. As markets in Africa show, the agricultural sector, including cattle production, to be a very strong market, biomass residues such as cow manure and other organic substances are available as a cheap or free by-product. To turn these natural resources into a valuable commodity, it simply has to be converted by fermentation into biogas usable for cooking or electricity and fertiliser usable for private gardening. Current knowledge has proved how effective and simple biomass and biogas production can be. The output of one ton of silage can produce up to 200 m3 of biogas with a productivity of 5.0–7.5 kWh electricity per m3 of biogas. Cow manure as a source of waste product is available at an annual amount of 7.5–21.0 m3 per animal with a productivity of about 30 m3 of biogas including 56% of methane (CH4). A micro-biogas production facility is viable with a capacity of about 1 kWh – this is equivalent to the digestion of cow manure from seven milk cows. Using biomass additionally supports the reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) particularly CO2, NH4, N2O. Compared to CO2, NH4 has got 25-times higher and N2O 298-times higher Global Warming Potential (GWP). The reduction of these greenhouse gases as a side benefit of biomass production provides an indication of how positive this strategy could be for both the agricultural sector as well and general public.

The Emergence and Survival of Microbreweries in Hungary

This chapter investigates the emergence of microbreweries in Hungary after 2000. The privatization of the Hungarian beer industry leads to the dominance of the big multinational enterprises. Although in the early phase of the transition the number of microbreweries increased rapidly, their number had declined considerably during analyzed period. Our major findings are as follows: Microbreweries are typically short-lived, and they live only four years in average during a fifteen-year period. The entry rate of microbreweries was greater after the economic crisis than before it, while the exit rate decreased. However, in recent years, due to the new regulations on the beer market, relatively low entry costs, and rapidly growing demand for craft beers, the number of microbreweries started to increase again. New wave microbreweries efficiently reflect to the new generation demand for higher priced craft beers, and thus, they are able to create and exploit a new market segment. They concentrate on large university cities and Budapest using efficiently social media as a marketing tool.

Intra-industry Trade in the Beer Industry within the Enlarged European Union

In recent decades intra-industry trade (IIT) has become a widespread phenomenon, with its growing role in international trade providing strong incentives for theoretical and empirical research. The stronger economic ties among European countries arising from the creation and expansion of the European Union (EU) have contributed to an increase in IIT among EU Member States. There is a wealth of literature on IIT between a particular Member State and its partner (Jensen and Luthje, 2009 Milgram-Baleix and Moro-Egido, 2010). However, many of these studies have focused on industrial products. In addition, recent studies (Leitao, 2011; Jambor 2014a, 2014b; Fertő and Jambor, 2015) suggest that the role of IIT has been increasing in agricultural trade between European Member States.

Simulation of Carbon Consumption by Biological Models

Since the 1970’s, the shortage of available and usable resources has been seen as the ‘limit to growth’. Since then, the regenerative-ability of the environment—its ability to absorb harmful substances and waste products, has achieved a similar standing. Critical ecological examination must take not only the beginning, but also the end of the production chain into consideration, and thereby give equal weight to the exhaustion of important production materials (energy, raw materials) as well as to the over-stretching of the ecological reproduction capacity of the Earth. To recognize the carbon influence in production processes, it is necessary to balance anthropogenic material streams. For production processes and material recycling, the smallest common and not further reducible indicator is carbon. With knowledge of requirements, it is possible to reduce carbon consumption as a becoming scarce natural resource and fossil fuel which is used in different production process. Therefore, the material fluxes as the product of density (mass by volume) and hydrologic flow velocity (distance by time) must be known for every place and time of the production process. This investigation shows that the annual input and output of carbon in processes are almost balanced. With this carbon-balance, it is possible to identify resources and depressions of carbon and to point out approaches for optimization. Mostly material streams show a flow of valuable materials which can be merchandized if the quality is still right. This also reflects the strategy of cradle-to-cradle. To evaluate these anthropogenic impacts of pollutants on the environment or material streams in the natural circle, it is indispensable to use the benefits of computer systems—in particular artificial intelligence. Most of impact factors are time related and therefore difficult to calculate and to optimize in a natural environmental system. Use of evolutionary algorithms as a part of the artificial intelligence to simulate, estimate and evaluate pollutants or specific materials makes it possible to evaluate the impact on the environment and to optimize material streams in nature or recycling streams.

Risk Communication at the Hungarian Guar-Gum Scandal

Millions of people have no access to healthy and safe food due to food insecurity that may occur at household, regional or national levels. National policies, insufficient agricultural development and low levels of education may lead to food insecurity. Furthermore, food quality and food safety is a major benchmark of economic development. Food borne risks to human health can arise from biological, chemical or physical hazards. Risk analysis is a key discipline for reducing food borne diseases and food insecurity, and for strengthening food safety systems. Food safety risk analysis is used for assessing and managing risks associated with food hazards. The risk analysis process contains three elements: risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. This paper focuses on risk communication and summarizes the results and findings of the case study for official food safety communicators. The preliminary descriptive study intends to present the reaction of Hungarian consumers to a crisis that affected a wide range of society. In 2007, the guar gum scandal caused panic among consumers when dioxin-contaminated guar gum entered the food chain. This food contamination scare followed previous occasions such as production of intoxicated paprika powder, re-labelling of overdue meat packages and the Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis in Hungary. To analyze risk perception and consumer behavior, a primary research was conducted with a sample size of 1,577.