ALBERT

Description: This paper provides an analysis of a designed underground station infrastructure for vacuum tube high-speed trains for the planned mega transport hub in Poland. The potential of integrating the infrastructure of the station building with sealed low-pressure tubes system is analyzed. The Solidarity Transport Hub Poland is a planned mega hub to be located in Baranów Municipality, Poland, which is comprised of an airport, an airport city, a road, and railway infrastructure. It is to be integrated with the first route of vactrains in Poland. The aim of this paper is to design a hyperloop station building adequate for the advanced technology of low-pressure high-speed trains. Designing a hyperloop station is not trivial, due to technological aspects which have not been hitherto present in airport or railway planning and design, such as low-pressure zones or airlocks which determine possible passenger paths and evacuation roads. Both the mega airport and Polish hyperloop are in the planning stage, therefore, in this paper, available models and designs of the hyperloop station building and infrastructure are used in order to formulate recommendations for further development and identify critical issues related to the safety and reduction of passenger transit time. The main contribution of this paper is a model of the hyperloop station building which respects the principles of spatial planning and safety standards.

Description: Contemporary agriculture has become very energy-intensive and mainly uses electricity, which is needed for technological processes on livestock farms. Livestock faeces are burdensome for the environment due to the release of methane into the atmosphere. This article presents the concept of a self-sufficient livestock farm as an off-grid energy circuit that is a part of the agricultural process. The key idea is to obtain an energy flow using the concept of a smart valve to achieve a self-sufficient energy process based on a biogas plant, renewable energy sources, and energy storage. During the production process, a livestock farm produces large amounts of waste in the form of grey and black manure. On the one hand, these products are highly harmful to the environment, but on the other, they are valuable input products for another process, i.e., methane production. The methane becomes the fuel for cogeneration generators that produce heat and electricity. Heat and electricity are partly returned to the main farming process and partly used by residents of the area. In this way, a livestock farm and the inhabitants of a village or town can become energy self-sufficient and independent of national grids. The idea described in this paper shows the process of energy production combining a biogas plant, renewable energy sources, and an energy storage unit that enable farmland to become fully self-sufficient through the energy flow between all constituents of the energy cycle being maintained by a smart valve.