The issue of air pollution, resulting to a large extent from the use of fossil fuels for energy purposes, is one of the most serious environmental threats in several Polish cities, but also outside of them. The amount of pollutants emitted into the atmosphere translates into the living conditions of the inhabitants. The utilization of geothermal energy, which is a renewable and ecological source of energy, brings noticeable improvement in the quality of atmospheric air, as evidenced by significant ecological effects achieved by working geothermal district heating plants. The paper presents results of comprehensive considerations focused on assessing the effects of utilization of geothermal water and energy in Poland. Issues related to the implementation of exploration works aimed at acquiring geothermal water resources, as well as environmental aspects of the use of geothermal waters and energy were discussed. The undertaken considerations have been directed at assessing whether the use of such a kind of renewable energy resources could have an impact on improving the living conditions of the local community.

The aim of the work was to determine the technological reliability of the selected pollution indicators removal BOD5, CODCr and total suspension from the sewage treatment plant working with the bioreactor Pomiltek Mann type. Wastewater treatment plant which is a subject of this study is located in Lesser Poland, in Siepraw commune. The analysis was per-formed using the Weibull method for basic indicators of impurities, BOD5, CODCr and total suspended solids. Physico-chemical analyses of raw and treated wastewater, were carried out in the period from 2003 to 2014 (11 years). The research period included measured values of pollutions indicators in 38 samples of raw and treated sewage. For each of pollution indicators descriptive statistic, percentage reduction (��) and treatment plant reliability factors (RF) were calculated. Aver-age reduction for BOD5 and TSS was on level equal 94%, only for COD the average reduction was lower and was on level 89%. The reliability values determined by Weibull method, were: 75% (BOD5), 90% (CODCr) and 89.5% (TSS). The relia-bility results have been lower than the presented by literature source, which means that work of wastewater treatment plant in Siepraw was not satisfied in 11 years of research.

The aim of the study was to model the operation of a wastewater treatment plant using the Monte Carlo method and selected probability distributions of random variables. Pollutant indices in treated wastewater were analysed, such as: biological oxygen demand ( BOD ₅), chemical oxygen demand ( COD _Cr), total suspended solids ( TSS), total nitrogen (N _tot), total phosphorus (P _tot). The preliminary analysis of pollution indicators series included the: calculation of descriptive statistics and assessment of biological degradability of wastewater. The consistency of the theoretical distributions with the empirical ones was assessed using Anderson–Darling statistics. The best-fitting statistical distributions were selected using the percent bias criterion. Based on the calculations performed, it was found that the analysed indicators of pollution in treated wastewater were characterised by an average variability of composition for BOD ₅, COD _Cr and TSS, and a high variability of composition for N _tot and P _tot. The best fitted distribution was log-normal for BOD ₅, TSS, N _tot and P _tot and general extreme values for COD _Cr. The simulation carried out using the Monte-Carlo method confirmed that there may be problems associated with the reduction of nutrients (N _tot and P _tot) the analysed wastewater treatment plant. Results of values obtained of the risk values of negative control of wastewater treatment plant operation for biogenic compounds, different from 1, indicate that the number of exceedances at the outflow may be higher than the acceptable one.