Considerations regarding environmental impact assessment of different technological applications

Having the goal to actually increase the quality of life of our society, several industrial activities and applications have been developed in different fields. But in the meantime it has been very clear that these industrial activities and applications can have beside positive direct and desired effects, also negative, undesired and sometimes unthinkable effects on the environment and society. In this context the concept of sustainable development of our society is nowadays very much discussed on different levels. Taking into account the sustainability of our society it is necessary to evaluate industrial processes or generally economic activities not only from economic and technological points of view but from environmental and social ones as well. In the last years the new discipline called Technology Assessment grew up. The discipline bases on several instruments and methods to carry out technology assessment studies but especially for assessing environmental impacts of industrial activities. For such environmental impact assessment studies scientists often use analytical methods and instruments. There are several methods and instruments used in this regard. Presently the most discussed one on an international level is the life cycle assessment (LCA). In the present paper some general notions regarding these tools and application possibilities will be presented. The energetic use of biomass in the form of different bioenergy concepts is a newer technological application. Possible concepts in this regard can be biogas plants, which are operated by electric service providers or a single biogas plant owned by one farmer.