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Iran's agricultural production has expanded significantly in recent years. Environmental pollution caused by the use of energy and chemical fertilizers, depletion of groundwater resources, and soil erosion, on the other hand, demonstrates a lack of attention to the environmental dimension of production in this country. In addition to these issues, climate change has exacerbated the agriculture sector's difficulties. This study intends to investigate the asymmetric relationship between energy consumption, chemical fertilizer consumption, CO 2 emissions, temperature changes, and production from 1961 to 2019 using the NARDL approach and Granger causality test in the frequency domain (Breitung and Candelon.). Short-term and long-term estimates revealed that the positive and negative shock effects of energy consumption on production are both positive. As a result, it was observed that the negative shock of increased energy consumption had a greater influence on agricultural output than the positive shock. In the long run, the positive shock of fertilizer use has a positive effect on and improves production. But the effect of a negative shock is insignificant. Furthermore, the negative shock of CO 2 emission has a positive effect on production. Finally, positive and negative shocks in temperature changes were discovered to have an increasing and reducing influence on production. The results of the Granger causality test in the frequency domain test showed that there is a bidirectional causality relationship between energy consumption and agro-production in the long term. There is also unidirectional causality from CO 2 emissions and fertilizer consumption to production and from production to climate change. According to the findings, reforming energy prices, investing in mechanized agriculture, shifting away from fossil fuel consumption towards renewable energy, and tending to green growth are all necessary to achieve multiple goals such as optimizing energy consumption, reducing environmental pollution, and improving efficiency., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Economic complexity, biomass energy consumption, and information communication technology (ICT) have diverse impacts on energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions. Nevertheless, analysis of these variable effects is not addressed in the previous literature; the antiqueness of this article is stuffing this gap. This study assessed the relationship between gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, biomass consumption, economic complexity index (ECI), ICT, and CO 2 emissions in Iran in 1994-2018. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model and the quantile regression (QR) econometric technique were used to investigate the factors affecting CO 2 emissions in the tails of the conditional distribution. The share of each influential factor was predicted through the variance decomposition analysis (VD) for the next 10 years. The empirical results showed a long-run relationship between the variables. So, the variables of biomass consumption, ECI, and ICT improve the quality of the environment in Iran by reducing CO 2 emissions, and the per capita GDP variable increases CO 2 emissions. Results suggest no evidence indicating the presence of environmental Kuznets curve (EKC); however, QR demonstrated the existence of EKCs in the lower quantiles of the conditional distribution. The ECI will have the most share to change the CO 2 emissions in the future. The income threshold should be determined at the turning point of the EKC to increase economic development. Moreover, investing in increasing biomass consumption is vital. Policymakers also need to consider strict added value for the export of products., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

In Iran, the entire energy system relies on fossil fuels, which imposes significant greenhouse gas emissions. Besides, among different greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide (CO2) has the most considerable portion, and Iran is known as one of the top ten CO2 emitting countries, especially in the industry section. In this paper, a new multi-mode resource-constrained project scheduling problem is presented regarding the emitted CO2 as a greenness index. The proposed mathematical model has four objective functions, which are, minimizing the project completion time, project costs, and emitted CO2, and the fourth objective function maximizes the project quality. The time lag and reworking are regarded in the mathematical model. Reworking not only causes an increase in the project quality and more CO2 emissions but also increases the complexity of the problem. Uncertainty is an essential part of any construction project in real situations, so activities duration and cost of non-renewable and renewable resources are under interval-valued fuzzy uncertainty. To solve the mathematical model with uncertainty, a new extended solving method is proposed. Furthermore, a case study in Iran is presented to show the impact of the given model in real projects, and related results along with the analyses are conducted on this case. Additionally, Pareto front solutions are presented to show the trade-off between objectives. The results illustrate that considering CO2 emissions as a greenness index can reduce project costs and improve quality. On the other hand, this index increases the project completion time. This paper has practical implications for project managers and companies to reach their fundamental goals (i.e., time, cost, and quality) alongside minimizing emitted CO2 in an uncertain environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most scholars support the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as one of the major causes of the increase in global climate change. Therefore, reducing CO2 emissions from the main emitter countries, including Iran as the sixth emitter, is important to deal with the harmful effects of global climate change. Accordingly, the main aim of this paper was to analyze the social, economic, and technical factors affecting CO2 emissions in Iran. Previous studies on diverse variables affecting emissions are not very accurate and reliable as they do not consider indirect effects. This study applied a structural equation model (SEM) to estimate the direct and indirect impacts of factors on the emissions by panel data for 28 provinces of Iran from 2003 to 2019. According to geographical location, three distinct regions, the north, center, and south of Iran were considered. The findings suggest that a 1% increase in social factor directly increased CO2 emissions by 2.23% (in the north) and 1.58% (in the center), but indirectly reduced emissions by 0.41% (in the north) and 0.92% (in the center). Hence, the total effects of the social factor on CO2 emissions were estimated at 1.82%, and 0.66% in the northern, and central regions, respectively. In addition, the total effects of the economic factor on CO2 emissions were estimated at 1.52%, and 0.73% in those regions. The results of this study showed that the direct effects of a technical factor on CO2 emissions were negative in the north and center. However, they were positive in the south of Iran. Based on the empirical results of this study, three policy implications are discussed in order to control CO2 emissions in regional distinctions of Iran as follows: First, policymakers should pay attention to the social factor, i.e., the growth of human capital in the southern region with the aim of increasing sustainable development. Second, Iranian policymakers must prevent unilaterally increasing gross domestic product (GDP) and financial development in the north and center. Third, policymakers should pay attention to the technical factor, i.e., improving energy efficiency, as well as upgrading information and communications technology (ICT) in the northern and central regions, and limiting the technical factor in the southern region., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

It is essential to study CO 2 emissions intensity as the most critical factor affecting temperature increase and climate change in a country like Iran, which ranked seven regarding CO 2 emissions intensity. Investigating the convergence of CO 2 emissions intensity is essential in recognizing its dynamics in identifying the effectiveness of government environmental policies. In this paper, using the Markov chain and spatial Markov chain methods, the convergence of CO 2 emissions intensity from fossil-fuel consumption has been investigated in 28 provinces of Iran from 2002 to 2016. The empirical results showed that convergence clubs and neighbors significantly influenced the transition probability of regions to clubs with high and low CO 2 emissions. Therefore, if a province had a neighbor with low (high) CO 2 emissions intensity, the transition probability of this province to the club with low (high) CO 2 intensity increased. Therefore, in provinces that have neighbors with low (high) CO 2 emissions intensity, the transition probability to the club with low (high) CO 2 intensity increases., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Renewable-energy-based microgrids (MGs) are being advocated around the world in response to increasing energy demand, high levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, energy losses, and the depletion of conventional energy resources. However, the high investment cost of the MGs besides the low selling price of the energy to the main grid are two main challenges to realize the MGs in developing countries such as Iran. For this reason, the government should define some incentive policies to attract investor attention to MGs. This paper aims to develop a framework for the optimal planning of a renewable energy-based MG considering the incentive policies. To investigate the effect of the incentive policies on the planning formulation, three different policies are introduced in a pilot system in Iran. The minimum penetration rates of the RESs in the MG to receive the government incentive are defined as 20% and 40% in two different scenarios. The results show that the proposed incentive policies reduce the MG's total net present cost (NPC) and the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The maximum NPC and CO2 reduction in comparison with the base case (with incentive policies) are 22.87% and 56.13%, respectively. The simulations are conducted using the hybrid optimization model for electric renewables (HOMER) software. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim/purpose - The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new hybrid modelling to predict carbon dioxide emissions in order to make the correct decision to reduce air pollution in Iran. While there are not many data available for some variables, in this modelling, the goal is to make accurate predictions even with low data. Design/methodology/approach - In the present paper, CO2 emissions in Iran in the period of 1980-2014 was predicted using three models of Auto-Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL), Fuzzy Linear Regression (FLR) and hybrid model based on combination of ARDL and FLR models, and then the prediction accuracy of the models is compared. Findings - Comparing prediction accuracy of models showed that the Fuzzy Auto- -Regressive Distributed Lag (FARDL) is more accurate than the initial patterns for predicting carbon dioxide emissions. Finally, the results showed that GDP and energy consumption has a positive and significant correlation with carbon dioxide emissions in short run. Also, the carbon dioxide emission indicated a low elasticity towards GDP and low energy consumption. Research implications/limitations - When the number of data is low, the FARDL model provides a more accurate prediction than ARDL and FLR Models. FARDL's combined model reduces the problems that exist in the ARDL and FLR models. One of the problems with the ARDL model is the need for many tests; the problem with the fuzzy regression model is also the high fuzzy distance length that makes decision making difficult. The FARDL model eliminates these constraints as much as possible. Originality/value/contribution - This paper has been able to confirm that Fuzzy Auto- -Regressive Distributed Lag (FARDL) is more accurate than the initial patterns for predicting carbon dioxide emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the sustainability of Tabriz City focusing on its decarbonization. Statistical, quantitative, and comparative research methods are used to analyze the total energy consumed, conversion of primary energy, final exergy, and losses analysis according to the renewable and carbon-based energies. Then, the renewable resource potentials of the city are simulated using Grasshopper plug-in-Rhino simulator, THERM, PVSyst photovoltaic software, and ArcMap. In terms of the socio-economic assessment, non-oil Per Capita GDP, emissions, and energy intensities are analyzed concerning the B2DS scenario by 2050. The per capita GDP of the city is 71% of the country's average value. Tabriz's real GDP growth averaged −1.11% per year, primary energy demand increased by an average of 6.1%, CO 2 emissions from energy use grew by an average of 6% annually and the emission intensity of the economy increased by a total of 52.02%, in the period from 2011 to 2019. Finally, it is shown that the city consumes 58050 GWh/year of different carbon-based resources that only produced 20110 GWh/year of useful work with 5.63 MT CO 2 emissions, while the same work could locally be supplied by 30000 GWh/year RE with a minimum rate of 0.18 MT CO 2 emissions. The city Landfill receives 1000 tons/day of MSW, but two-thirds of this amount can be recycled. Regarding different sectors, buildings produce half of the CO 2. The cement industry with dual pollutants (17%) is the most polluting factory. Carbon-based electricity (66%) is the most polluting form of energy. In terms of carbon sequestration requirements with trees, shifting from fossil fuels toward green energies, EE, and recycling MSW can plunge required trees from 81.9 to 1.16 million trees. This paper highlights the importance of electrification of transportation based on RE, energy performance of buildings, and all sectors. • Large city decarbonization strategies • Application of RE according to geographic and climatic factors. • Electrification of sectors based on RE locally. • MSW recycling and sequestration by trees for decarbonization regarding the LULC and NDVI analysis. • Conversion and storage efficiencies of carbon-based fuels vs RE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iran has committed to a 4% reduction target by 2030; but as the Iranian economy is fossil fuel based, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have continued to surge over the last decade. In this paper, we consider whether carbon pricing could help Iran to achieve its Paris targets. First, we describe current climate-related policies in Iran and survey relevant academic literature on their effectiveness. We then review carbon pricing designs in five countries with a comparable development status to Iran. Finally, we consider whether Iran's current climate policies are adequate and what role carbon pricing could play in a future climate policy mix. The results of this study should enhance an understanding of Iran's climate policy, which thus far has received little attention in research; and can be put to immediate use in shaping a sustainable climate policy strategy for Iran. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: One of the most problems in developing countries is the integrated waste management and the effects on Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emission, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used in this paper as a decision supporting tool in planning Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) managements. Methods: In this paper the EPA's Waste Reduction Model (WARM) that provide GHG emission factors for waste stream components that are based on life Cycle Inventory (LCI) framework were used and The MSW management methods comprised in seven scenarios. Results: The amount of GHG which was generated from Iran's waste sector estimated about 17836079 Metric Tons of Carbon dioxide Equivalents (MT CO2e) in this study. The lowest amount of GHG was generated by LFG capture system with energy recovery (557635 MT CO2e), while Incineration of materials being sent to landfill (1756823 MT CO2e), Landfill Gas (LFG) capture system with flaring (2929150 MT CO2e) and Improved source reduction and recycling (4780278 MT CO2e) emitted fewer GHG than the other scenarios. Lowest levels of gross energy consumption occur in source reduction with recycling and composting (-89356240 Mega British Thermal Unit, M BTU), recycling and composting (-86772060 M BTU) as well as Improved source reduction with recycling and composting (-54794888 M BTU). Conclusions: It appears that recycling and composting each offer significant GHG emissions and energy consumption reductions (scenarios 4, 5 and 6). Upon of the GHG emission and energy consumption results concluded that improved source reduction and recycling scenario has been the Balanced and appropriate technology for handling the solid waste streams in municipalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over a decade now, decomposition analysis has become popular in energy and environment studies. This paper therefore identifies the factors that have influenced changes in CO2 emissions in Iran for the period 1990-2010. The Refined Laspeyres Index method has been utilized in order to decompose the CO2 emissions while four main factors of the observed changes have been identified: economic activity, energy intensity (energy use per unit of economic output), carbon intensity (CO2 emission per unit of energy use), and population effect. The study period has been divided into two decades, the first one encompassing the period from 1990 to 2000 and the second one from 2000 to 2010. Our empirical findings have revealed that the main factor which is accelerating CO2 emissions in Iran is the economic activity for the entire study period. Also within the first decade of the study, economic activity has been followed by energy intensity while in the second decade; it has been followed by population effect. Furthermore, the carbon intensity has made minor contributions to CO2 emissions in Iran throughout the study period. Given that Iran is an energy intensive and largely oil dependent country; we therefore suggest it would be better off in terms of reduced CO2 emissions by pushing down current energy intensity as its main environmental and economic policy objective. For the future studies, a sectoral CO2 emissions analysis could be conducted for Iran in order to examine the carbon emissions increasing and decreasing factors and provide some sectoral policy implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The developing countries and emerging economies are crucially contributing to global economic development, energy transition, and climate governance. This paper employs panel cointegration technique to investigate the long-run relationship between carbon emissions and five impacting factors (per capita GDP, primary energy consumption, international trade, fossil proportion, and quadratic per capita GDP) in 50 representative developing countries during 1995-2017. The empirical findings confirm the existence of long-run equilibrium, and the regressing coefficients of fully-modified OLS (FMOLS) indicate that (a) impacting features of the inverted U-shaped curve of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) theory appear in a few countries, such as Mexico, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Algeria, Indonesia, and Thailand; (b) the energy consumption has statistically positive and significant impacts on boosting the carbon emissions; (c) the negative effect of international trade emerges in the developing nations enjoying trade surpluses; and (d) fossil energy share poses a mixed impact. This paper reveals that the vast and inspiring contribution of developing countries to global carbon emission reduction should attract more international attention and assistance.

Current economic policy planning places much emphasis on balancing development and environmental protection. Hence, it is important to determine the drivers of environment pollution from the theoretical, scientific, and policymaking aspects in the context of continuous economic growth. This paper investigates the factors affecting per capita CO 2 emissions in 30 provinces in Iran from 2009 to 2014 with emphasis on spatial spillover effects using the Spatial Durbin Model. The findings show that per capita CO 2 emissions are positively and significantly affected by per capita GDP, industrialization, and urbanization but negatively affected by changes in population. The results of the spatial section of the model indicate that both the more and the less-polluted provinces tend to cluster together, indicating positive spatial dependence for CO 2 emissions in the provinces. Also, the spatial spillover of per capita GDP and the growth of urbanization have a negative and significant effect on per capita CO 2 emissions in the provinces, while the spatial effect of changes in population is significant but positive. In other words, the economic development and rise in urbanization in one province are the results of changes in pollution levels in neighboring provinces.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of economic growth, international trade and energy consumption on the global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, in the case of top CO2 emitters, namely, USA, Japan, Canada, Iran, Saudi Arabia, UK, Australia, Italy, France and Spain using the annual data from 1971 to 2013. Design/methodology/approach: For this purpose, the time series, data technique is applied. Unit root test with structural break and the bounds testing approach for cointegration in the presence of structural break is tested. Finally, a vector error correction model for the Granger causality test is applied to detect the direction of causality. The authors have used the techniques that will help in examining the structural break in the time series data. Findings: The results reveal that their exists a long-run relationship between CO2 emissions and its determinants in the USA, Canada, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UK, Australia, Italy, France and Spain, energy consumption is the main determinant of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the long run and for direction of causality, the authors found bidirectional causality in the long run between energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the USA, Canada, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UK, and Granger causality running in opposite direction in the case of Australia from CO2 emissions to energy consumption was analyzed. In terms of growth-trade-pollution nexus (USA, Canada, Iran and France) hold one-way causality running from economic growth and trade openness to CO2 emissions (IV) the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis is validated only for the USA. Robust policy implications can be derived from this study. First, without harming the economy, these countries can reduce the use of energy consumption for lower pollution. Second, the amount of trade should be decreased to lower the emissions because the authors find that an increase in trade does Granger cause to CO2 emissions in the long run. Originality/value: There has been no study that investigated the relationship between CO2 emissions, real income, consumption of energy and international trade in the environmental Kuznets relation for the top CO2 emitter's countries over the period of 1971–2013. The authors did a comparative study of the empirical finding among these nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper, a new energy generation system is suggested for multiple outputs, including a hydrogen generation unit. The plant is powered by a solar tower and involves six different subsystems; supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO 2) re-compression Brayton cycle, ammonia-water absorption refrigeration cycle, hydrogen generation, steam generation, drying process, and thermoelectric generator. The thermodynamic assessment of the multi-generation system is carried out for three different cities from Turkey, Iran, and Qatar. The energy and exergy efficiencies are calculated for base conditions to compare the different locations. The operating output parameters for the suggested system and simple re-compression Brayton system are compared. A parametric analysis is also done for investigating the influences of different system variables on plant performance. According to the results, Doha city is found to be more effective due to its geographical conditions. Moreover, based on the comparative study, the proposed cycles produce more power than the basic re-compression cycle with 64.59 kW, 47.33 kW, and 52.25 kW for Doha, Isparta, and Tehran, respectively. Additionally, the analyses revealed that in the term of energy efficiency, the suggested system has 32.29%, 32.28%, and 32.29% better performance than the simple cycle, and in terms of exergy efficiency, it has 4%, 4.8%, and 5% better performance than the simple cycle in Doha, Isparta, and Tehran, respectively. • A new integrated energy system with maximum waste recovery introduced. • Three different cities in Turkey, Iran and Qatar were select for system analysis. • The average annual rate of hydrogen production for Doha is 6.48 kg/h. • Suggested system in Isparta has 2070 kW more exergy destruction than basic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing demand for energy has led to the popularity of building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems. However, photovoltaic (PV) system efficiency decreases as the temperature increases. To address this issue, a study was conducted on a BIPV thermal (BIPVT) system, which can generate both thermal and electrical energy, to enhance its efficiency. In this study, for the cold weather in Tabriz city in Iran, BIPV and BIPVT systems are compared with each other in terms of energy, economy, exergy, and environment (4E) and the goal is to fully supply the thermal and electrical load of the desired building. The studied criteria are electrical power and heat recovery, payback time (PBT), exergy efficiency, and saved carbon dioxide (SCD) from the energy, economic, exergy, and environmental point of view, respectively. Finally, it is concluded that in cold weather, the BIPVT system can achieve a 7.15% improvement in produced power compared to the BIPV system and 52.2% of the building's heating needs are provided. It also causes the exergy efficiency to improve by an average of 1.69% and saves 34.98 ton of carbon dioxide. The PBT of this study is calculated as 5.77 years for the BIPV system and 4.78 years for the BIPVT system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: It is predicted that demand for electricity in Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to increase dramatically in the future due to the rapid pace of economic development leading to construction of new power plants. At the present time, most of electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels which result in emission of great deal of pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHG) such as SO₂, NOx, and CO₂. The power industry is the largest contributor to these emissions. Due to minimal emission of GHG by renewable and nuclear power plants, they are most suitable replacements for the fossil-fueled power plants. However, the nuclear power plants are more suitable than renewable power plants in providing baseload electricity. The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, the only nuclear power plant of Iran, is expected to start operation in 2010. This paper attempts to interpret the role of Bushehr nuclear power plant (BNPP) in CO₂ emission trend of power plant sector in Iran., Materials and Methods: In order to calculate CO₂ emissions from power plants, National CO₂ coefficients have been used. The National CO₂ emission coefficients are according to different fuels (natural gas, fuels gas, fuel oil)., Results and Discussion: By operating Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in 2010, nominal capacity of electricity generation in Iran will increase by about 1,000 MW, which increases the electricity generation by almost 7,000 MWh/year (it is calculated according to availability factor and nominal capacity of BNPP)., Conclusions: Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant will decrease the CO₂ emission in Iran power sector, by about 3% in 2010.

In this research, experimental investigations of foam-assisted water alternating gas and water alternating gas processes in carbonate cores are studied in order to estimate the increases in the oil recovery in the gas and water invaded zones. Core flooding experiments were performed for low-temperature fractured carbonate cores, chosen from one of the Iranian carbonate oil reservoirs, under tertiary recovery conditions. The experiments were conducted on 1.5-in. diameter carbonate cores, using live oil and synthetic/field brine (with 5,000 ppm of salts) as the water formation and also sodium lauryl sulfate as an anionic surfactant along with pure CO2 as the injection gas. The samples were initially saturated with live oil and connate water and then flooded with brine to reach residual oil saturation at reservoir conditions (115°F and 1,700 psia) to imitate the water invaded zone in the core. In addition to that, since the reservoir has a secondary gas cap, the same procedure was used to provide the gas invaded zone with methane as well. After performing water and gas flooding processes, several cycles of foam-assisted water alternating gas and water alternating gas were injected into the core. The experimental results indicated that a better swept efficiency and, consequently, a higher improved oil recovery can be achieved by the foam-assisted water alternating gas process. The recoveries are shown to be 19.2 and 28.7% of the residual oil in place for gas and water invaded zones, respectively. Furthermore, the results indicate that in the foam-assisted water alternating gas process, the produced free gas decreases due to foam generation inside the core. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One of the most aggressive environments for concrete is in an industrial area such as a petrochemical complex compound. In this area, exposure to highly corrosive materials such as ammonium nitrate, high carbonation rates (resulting from increased concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in industrial environments, and environmental conditions (such as relative humidity and temperature fluctuations) can collectively contribute to weakening the durability of concrete. This paper presents a study of corrosion damage of concrete and the embedded reinforcing steel of a 44-year-old nitrate prill tower of a petrochemical complex located in Shiraz, a city in southern Iran. After a thorough visual inspection and observing different deterioration mechanisms, a comprehensive set of conventional experiments to assess the durability of reinforced concrete was performed. Various degrees of deterioration were associated with different exposure conditions along the tower. Results indicated that the concrete had been severely decalcified up to 3 cm from its surface. However, reinforcement corrosion was negligible. Results moreover show that exposure to ammonium nitrate solutions was the primary reason for the high deterioration of the concrete of the tower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The volume and structure of household's consumption have an important role in energy consumption and related air pollutant emissions. This study extended the input–output structural decomposition analysis (I–O SDA) to investigate the effect of changes in the volume and structure of household consumption in urban and rural areas on indirect CO2 emission in Iran during 2011–2016. The results showed that total consumption of urban households have played a major role in increasing indirect carbon dioxide emissions. At the sectoral level, the sectors of "Electricity" and "Transport" are the most contributors of increasing the carbon dioxide emission in Iran during study period. Changes in consumption structure in both urban and rural areas have reduced carbon emissions. Changes in consumption structure in urban area have led to decrease of 41.94 Mt–CO2. The reduction of carbon dioxide emissions due to changes in consumption structure in rural area was equal to 25.76 million tons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel combination of transcritical carbon dioxide refrigeration with Boosted-MED (Multi-Effect-Desalination) system to provide cooling and fresh water simultaneously. In the combined system a part of gas cooler in refrigeration system is replaced by the first effect and Booster module of Boosted-MED; so that a significant amount of waste heat would be recovered. Thermodynamic and economic analyses are carried out in order to investigate the proposed system’s performance. Since institution of CO 2 as a heating medium in MED systems is a novel topic; so, the heat transfer process between CO 2 and seawater is studied. Results show that the supercritical CO 2 presents an effective heat exchange process. Therefore, the specific heat transfer area would be reduced 135% and 25% compared to conventional MEDs and sensible heat source MEDs, respectively. The proposed combined system can save 57% of energy and 37.8% and 29.1% of total annual cost in Iran and Toronto respectively, compared to a stand-alone CO 2 refrigeration system and an MED-Boosted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With an accelerated process of urbanization and improved standards of living, metropolises have a great responsibility and high potential to mitigate the global carbon emissions and Shiraz city is not an exception. There has been no comprehensive understanding of the carbon emissions in this area. So, the present study aimed to evaluate the environmental performance and trend prediction for five sub-sectors of urban management, namely transportation, municipal buildings, residential buildings, municipal waste disposal, and wastewater in Shiraz metropolis, Iran. In this study, the first section evaluated the environmental emissions, and in the second section, CO2-eq emissions were predicted based on two factors, population growth rate and GDP per capita, for Shiraz metropolis, Iran. For this purpose, the CURB tool was used to calculate the CO2-eq of each sector. Data were collected from the 2018 Shiraz Municipality statistical yearbook, published articles related to each sector, subsector annual statistical reports, and the World Bank, OECD, and IPCC. The results showed that the residential and urban transport sectors had the highest impact on total CO2-eq emissions. The residential sector accounted for the highest share (2,233,532 t CO2-eq) (60%), followed by the urban transport sector (1,169,927 t CO2-eq) (31%). The results of the second section indicated that 5,881,360 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent can be emitted in this city in the future (in 2035). The results indicated that Shiraz city does not have a significant share in greenhouse gas emissions compared with similar cities from two perspectives of development level and climate similarity index. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The environment is one of the main concerns in global policies and affects many other factors including the economy. Trade liberalization would affect environmental quality through its effect on production. This study aims to express the effect of the trade liberalization policy on environmental pollution in the frame of a multi-regional system model. Thus, the GTAP-E model was utilized for the year 2019, so that the environmental consequences (in terms of measurement of CO2 emission) could be studied as the result of reducing the tariffs on import in the forms of two scenarios. In the first scenario, the import tariff on agricultural, industry and services products was reduced by 5%, and in the second scenario, the import tariff on the agricultural, industry and services sectors was reduced by 5%, 10% and 15%, respectively. The results obtained in both cases indicate a reduction in the effect of scale, technique and composition. The results indicate that an import tariff reduction in the various sectors of the economy reduces pollution emissions and its effects improve the environment. The second scenario has a greater effect on the different sectors and also is closer to the reality of Iran’s economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CO 2 utilization is one of several tools available to us to mitigate climate change. This paper aims to study and optimize the urea production in the largest CO 2 utilization plant in Iran. The location, magnitude, and source of thermodynamic inefficiencies of the plant are evaluated using exergy, exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental analyses. The optimization process uses as decision variables the temperature of the lean monoethanolamine solution and loading, along with the height of the absorber and the stripper of the plant. The decision variables and objective functions are trained with a hybrid combination of an artificial neural network with a genetic algorithm. The multi-objective genetic algorithm results in a pareto front of solutions. The exergy efficiency of the overall system is found to be 30.89% and 3.57, 2.86, 2.21% of the exergy of the fuel provided to the plant is destroyed in the soda ash wash direct contact, the stripper, and the absorber columns (424.07, 339.71 and 258.61 kW), respectively. The exergoeconomic analysis shows that the heat exchangers E-7 and E-8 result in relatively low exergoeconomic factor; therefore, an enhancement in the thermodynamic performance of the heat exchangers should be considered. The absorber column is found to have the largest environmental impact, equal to approximately 0.1205 mPt/s. The highest environmental impact of exergy destruction, equal to 33,256.3 mPts/hr is found in the stripper. • An industrial CO 2 capture and utilization integrated to a urea plant is investigated. • The system is optimized with an artificial neural network coupled to a genetic algorithm. • The plant is evaluated with exergy, exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Emission factors of CO2, SO2 and NO x emitted from Iran’s thermal power plants are fully covered in this paper. To start with, emission factors of flue gases were calculated for fifty thermal power plants with the total installed capacity of 34,863MW over the period 2007–2008 with regard to the power plants’ operation characteristics including generation capacity, fuel type and amount and the corresponding alterations, stack specifications, analysis of flue gases and physical details of combustion gases in terms of gkWh−1. This factor was calculated as 620, 2.57 and 2.31gkWh−1 for CO2, SO2 and NO x respectively. Regarding these results, total emissions of CO2, SO2 and NO x were found to be 125.34, 0.552 and 0.465Tg in turn. To achieve an accurate comparison, these values were compared with their alternatives in North American countries. According to this comparison, emission factor of flue gases emitted from Iran’s thermal power plants will experience an intensive decline if renewable, hydroelectric and nuclear types of energy are more used, power plants’ efficiency is increased and continuous emission monitoring systems and power plant pollution reduction systems are utilized. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Although carbon dioxide (CO2) injection is one of the most common enhanced-oil recovery methods that is widely used in many reservoirs, it may change the reservoir-fluid properties and cause problems such as asphaltene precipitation that will result in reduction of injectivity and productivity of oil wells and plugging of wellbores and production facilities. This paper describes the effect of a miscible CO2 flood on asphaltene precipitation in the Bangestan reservoir of the Kupal field in southwest Iran. The amount of asphaltene precipitation in the mixture of oil and CO2 gas was measured by means of a PVT (pressure/volume/temperature) test, and the mechanism of precipitation under reservoir conditions was obtained by a high-pressure coreflood test. Then, the experimental results were compared with those obtained from available asphaltene-precipitation models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest trees are considered important in ameliorating climate change through removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, for stabilizing water catchments and for timber production. Wood decay fungi are among the most important biotic factors in ecosystems, infecting valuable landscaping trees causing an economic loss or the preeminent recyclers of the wood. In a survey of forest trees in the Alamdardeh forest, northern Iran, fungal fruit bodies were collected and isolations made. Based on a combination of macro-morphological characteristics and molecular analyses, using the sequence data of ITS-rDNA, isolates were identified to the species level. A total of 22 species in nine families and 15 genera were identified. Most isolates were the white-rot fungi. Additionally, the brown-rot fungus Laetiporus sulphureus and the soft-rot species Xylaria longipes were indentified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND Postoperative pain, nausea, and vomiting are the most common side effects of laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC). In the present study, we investigated the differences in postoperative pain, nausea, and vomiting between Veress needle and direct trocar entry methods among patients undergoing LC. METHODS 96 patients with gallstones were studied. They were randomly divided into two groups: the patients in the first group (n = 48) were insufflated 8.1 liters per minute CO2 gas by direct trocar port, and the patients in another group (n = 48) were insufflated 2.1 liters per minute CO2 gas by Veress needle. Pain intensity, nausea, and vomiting were assessed at 20 minutes, 4 hours, and 12 hours after the operations. RESULTS The duration of CO2 gas insufflation in Veress needle was 88.7 ± 10.7 seconds and indirect trocar was 16.6 ± 1.6 seconds. Visual analog scale (VAS) score significantly reduced in Veress needle compared with direct trocar (0.39 ± 0.98 vs. 1.68 ± 1.48) at 20 min after the operation, while there was no difference at 4 hours and 12 hours after the operation. The requirement and dose of pethidine injection were significantly lower in Veress needle than direct trocar. In addition, nausea and vomiting occurred in Veress needle less than direct trocar at 20 min, 4 hours, and 12 hours after LC. CONCLUSION Pain intensity just in the short term after LC in the group with CO2 gas insufflation in Veress needle was significantly less than the other group, while nausea and vomiting were significantly less during the whole follow-up periods in the group with CO2 gas insufflation in Veress needle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, it has been attempted to quantify model climate change effects of the coming decades on energy demand and carbon dioxide emissions of a dominant building brigade under hot and humid climates on the southern coast of Iran, based on three stations of Bushehr, Bandar Abbas and Chabahar. In this research, the Meteonorm and DesignBuilder software have been used for climate and thermal simulation of building. One of the results of this study is the increase in temperature and relative humidity for the coming decades for all three study stations. The findings of this study showed that the average annual temperature for the 2060s compared to the present decade, will increase by 2.82 °C for Bandar Abbas, by 2.79 °C for Bushehr and for Chabahar it will reach 2.14 °C. This increase in temperature has led to an increase in discomfort warmer days and a decrease in discomfort cold days. But given the climatic type of the area, a decrease in the heating energy demand for the coming decades will not have a significant effect on the pattern of energy consumption inside buildings. Because for two stations of Bandar Abbas and Chabahar, more than 95% of the energy demand for the 2060s is for cooling energy demand, which is about 80% of energy for Bushehr. In total, due to the increased demand for cooling energy in the coming decades, this will further increase carbon dioxide emissions, which is higher in Chabahar than in other study stations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study was conducted to determine the relationship between air pollution and environmental parameters with sick building syndrome (SBS) symptoms in schools of northern Iran. This study was conducted on 759 students from a total of 52 primary, guidance and high schools in northern Iran. Selection of schools, classes in each school and students in each class was performed using a multistage random sampling method. Carbon dioxide (CO2), temperature and humidity were measured. Data on the SBS symptoms were collected using a standard questionnaire via interview. Measurements in 215 classes showed the highest levels of CO2, temperature and humidity were 4263 ppm, 25.2°C and 82.5%, respectively. A t-test showed that there were significant correlations between CO2 and temperature with SBS symptoms (p = 0.01). In Winter, dizziness (44.4%) was the most common symptom among 12 SBS symptoms, and fatigue (37.2%) was the most common symptom in Spring. Statistical analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between the types of ventilation, cooling and heating systems with the SBS symptoms in both seasons (p = 0.001). The SBS symptoms in students were considered to be mild. Considering the poor physical conditions in some schools and the lack of proper space and ventilation systems, the health authorities in cooperation with the Education Department should create better educational environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of power plants installed in Iran are normally using the cheapest and most available fuels as input energy sources (e.g., natural gas and oil). Iranian fossil-fueled power plants annually emit nearly 180 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), which contribute to global warming. On the other hand, the use of renewable energy for producing the needed electricity significantly reduces the greenhouse emissions and polluting gases. Therefore, the environmental and health costs of producing electrical energy using fossil fuels are significantly higher than renewables, which are often unseen. Among the best available renewable energy sources, Iran benefits from high solar insolation with around 300 clear days annually and also large areas of available land. This shows that the solar systems utilization in Iran will be very economical. Despite this vast potential, Iran's solar market has remained undeveloped. The installed capacity of solar energy was around 17.3 megawatts (MW) by 2015, while each kilowatt-hour of solar electricity could save around 715 g of CO2. The utilization of solar energy technologies is increasing around the world, which are due to technological progress, policy changes, the urgent need to reduce reliance on carbon-intensive energy sources like coal, oil and natural gas and the need to reduce greenhouse gases emission to the atmosphere. In conclusion, production of electrical and any other type of useful energy using solar systems can protect the environment. Thus, to achieve a sustainable future they should be employed as much as possible and wherever it is possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Management of difficult to wean patients is a dilemma for health care system. Recently published studies demonstrated efficacy of donepezil to counteract respiratory depression in sleep apnea. However, to the best of our knowledge, pharmaceutical interventions with donepezil to facilitate weaning have not been tested so far. Therefore in the present study, we evaluated the efficacy of using donepezil on weaning course in difficult to wean patients. Methods: In this non-randomized interventional clinical study, difficult to wean patients with prior inappropriately depressed respiratory responses were included from two referral intensive care units (ICU) in Iran. Patients with another potentially reasons of weaning failure were excluded from the study. Donepezil was started for eligible patients at dose of 10 mg daily for 2-4 weeks. For the primary outcomes, arterial blood gas (ABG) parameters were also measured before and after intervention to evaluate the possible effects of donepezil on them. In addition, weaning outcomes of patients were reported as final outcome in response to this intervention. Results: Twelve out of 16 studied patients experienced successful results to facilitate weaning with donepezil intervention. The mean duration of donepezil treatment until outcome measurement was 12 days. There were not any significant differences in ABG parameters among patients with successful and failed weaning trial on day of donepezil initiation. However after donepezil intervention, mean of PCO2 and HCO3 decreased in patients with successful weaning trial and mean of PCO2 increased in those with weaning failure. Conclusions: Reduced central respiratory drive was infrequently reason of failed weaning attempts but it must be considered especially in patients with hypercapnia secondary to inefficient gas exchange and slow breathing. Our results in the clinical setting suggest that, the use of donepezil can expedite weaning presumably by stimulation of respiratory center and obviate the need to re-intubation in cases of respiratory drive problem in difficult to wean patients. We suggest decrease PCO2 and HCO3 during donepezil steady could be valuable predictors for positive response to donepezil intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is essential that precipitation of asphaltenes is recognized early in the planning stage of any CO2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) project so that appropriate testing can be performed to evaluate whether there will be a negative impact on reservoir performance. This article presents detailed evaluations of slim tube data that were obtained during CO2 injection using a medium-gravity Iranian crude oil. A crude oil from Bangestan reservoir of Ahwaz oilfield containing 18.2% asphaltenes with ~31.5 °API gravity was flooded by purified CO2 (>96% CO2) in a slim tube apparatus under 2,700 psi at 110°C. We were going to determine the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) of the sample oil under injection of CO2 flood, but when a CO2 slim tube test was performed for this oil at 2,700 psi, less than half of the saturated oil in the tube was recovered, which implied that the displacement process was immiscible. At this pressure, the asphaltene deposition in the slim tube apparatus was so severe that even a pressure gradient of 6,200 lb/in2 was not able to displace any fluid through the capillary tube. Therefore, we abandoned MMP determination with this sample and investigated the problem. Due to the high percentage of asphaltenes in the sample, using the slim tube MMP as an apparatus for determining minimum miscibility pressure of CO2 and sample oil can be misleading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research attempts to evaluate the impact of renewable electricity generation mix on economic growth and CO2 emissions in Iran from 1980 to 2016. In this regard, by using EViews 10, the Structural Vector Autoregressive model (SVAR) is estimated by imposing the Blanchard and Quah long-run restrictions. The yearly data on real Gross Domestic Production (GDP), the share of electricity generation from renewable sources, and carbon dioxide emissions (CO2) caused by liquid, solid, and gaseous fuels were used. The positive impact of one standard deviation shock of increasing the share of renewable electricity on economic growth was confirmed by using Impulse Response Function (IRF). Contrary to the expectation, the share of renewable electricity in the energy mix is not at a desirable level to lower CO2 emissions, which partly could be explained by the dominant role of fossil fuel in Iran (as an energy-driven country). Moreover, the findings of Variance Decomposition (VD) verified the low share of electricity generated by renewable energy in explaining forecast error variations in economic growth and CO2 emissions. It indicates that in this stage of development, increasing the share of renewable electricity could not be considered as an appropriate strategy to control environmental issues. Therefore, initiating and implementing environmental policies could be considered as the most proper policies to lower CO2 emissions and to achieve the goal of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a huge potential for CO2-EOR and CO2 storage in depleted carbonate reservoirs in the south-west of Iran. In the first step of a CO2-EOR operation, a geomechanical assessment is needed to find out geological conditions, mechanical and strength properties of formation rocks (e.g., reservoir rock and caprock), in situ stress magnitudes and orientation and in situ pore pressure profile. An integrated analysis is performed in this work for geomechanical assessment of a reservoir-caprock system in Gachsaran oil field, south-west of Iran. A one-dimensional mechanical earth model (MEM) is built for 47 wells in the studied field based on drilling and logging data, laboratory and in situ tests. Static elastic and strength parameters of various formation rocks (limestone, dolomite, anhydrite, gray marl and salt) are evaluated from laboratory experiments. Empirical correlations are obtained to convert dynamic rock properties and well-log data to static elastic properties and strength parameters. The initial in situ pore pressure is calculated using modified Eaton method. In situ stresses state is evaluated based on the poroelastic method and calibrated using LOT and XLOT tests. The orientation of in situ stresses is obtained based on image logs. Fractures and faults analysis is performed to determine their orientations. An analytical analysis is performed to estimate the maximum sustainable CO2 injection pressure to prevent fault reactivation. This study presents a comprehensive method to reservoir and caprock characterization using laboratory and well-log data and 1D mechanical earth model. It helps the analysis of the geomechanical problems during CO2-EOR and provides the necessary information to build 3D geomechanical model for numerical simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]