Nowadays, energetic utilization of biomass, biotechnology attracts a big attention not only from the environmental point of view but also have a social, political and economical impact. According to the Directive 2003/30/EC of the European Parliament and the European Council the emission of greenhouse gases can be reduced by 49% using bioethanol produced by a manufacturing process based on corn, instead of crude oil based fuels. Moreover in Hungary from 1st of July 2007 only gasoline with at least 4.4% bioethanol content is commercialized. In this article, some concrete examples of successful developments and/or implementation of biomass projects in Hungary are given such as: production friendly raw synthetic material at "Nitrokémia" chemical plant, manufacture of bioethanol by "Hungrana" and "Győr Distillery" companies, bio-ethyl-tert-buthyl-ether production by MOL Pls. Danube Refinery, research on new generation of biofuels. The main advantages and disadvantages as well motivations for further research and development of Hungarian bio-industrial and bio-consumer sectors are discussed.

The wall of the red mud waste disposal facility at Ajka, Hungary ruptured on October 4, 2010. Nearly about 1 million m 3 of red mud sludge got out of the disposal facility and the neighbouring environment was heavily contaminated. In the emergency situation the top priority was put on the rescue of human lives and to provide first aid to the injured people. Many people end their lives will wear the scars caused by the caustic red mud sludge. The polluted surface waters (Stream Torna, River Marcal and River Rába) get into the River Danube therefore immediate measures had to be implemented to avoid the distribution of the pollution and to limit the spreading of the pollutants. In October 2010 the Accredited Water Quality Telemetry System devised by the Institute of Environmental Engineering, University of Pannonia and the ÖKORET Spin-off company was installed in the direct vicinity of Stream Torna and it measured and controlled the water quality at Devecser. The commencement of the dry red mud disposal treatment technology was realized by MAL Co. Ltd. on April 3, 2011 as a consequence of actions following the catastrophe. In this way the water content of the deposited red mud sludge generated was decreased from 80% to 30%. The paper deals with the results of the surface water monitoring and the emergency measures taken.

Nowadays the global climate change is one of the most significant questions from environmental, social, political and economic point of views. Global warming caused by green house gases emitted into the air is a result of the human activities (Energy Revolution, 2005-2007. The majority of the industrial processes has significant impact to human life and deteriorates the natural environment. In this paper different technologies (three industrial technologies) will be dealt with special focus on energy generation and reduction of CO 2 and NO/NO x emission levels. A case study to be described contributes to the increased energy security and the fulfillment of the electric energy production targets in Hungary provided on renewable basis. These plants are located in Transdanubia, Hungary.

The environmental impact assessment has gained a very important role in the decision making regarding different projects, investments, actions and proposals. The environmental impact assessment is a systematic process which deals with the consequences of the future developments in advance. The methodology of the assessment includes several techniques. The quantitative methods focus on the evaluation of the impacts by assigning importance values to the environmental parameters and quality scores. The method devised by Robu was further developed and protocol for the determination of the complex environment state index was devised. This method is adapted for a car part manufacturing company and conclusions are made on the environmental impacts of the company. The objective of the paper is to test this method on a manufacturing facility in Hungary in light of the legal stipulations and limit values to support the more efficient operation of the environmental management system of the company with identification of the significant environmental impacts.