ENERGY ECONOMICS REVIEW
Year:2009 | Volume:6 | Issue:21|Papers Count:7

Consumption of light petroleum products, particularly gasoline, plays a fundamental role in economic growth and development of countries considering its impact on the transport sector. Evaluation of factors that influence the demand for gasoline is necessary for sound planning to reach desired economic objectives. In this paper we use the Genetic Algorithm Technique, to estimate gasoline demand in the transport sector for period (1353-85) in the form of linear, quadratic and exponential equations. The knowledge gained about gasoline demand is then used to forecast gasoline consumption in the transport sector until 1404 under different scenarios. In this paper gasoline consumption is considered to be a function of GDP, gasoline price, population, average age of the automobile fleet and consumption efficiency. The results indicate that the quadratic model has greater predictive power than other models for estimating gasoline demand.

Economic development thought has passed three periods from 1950s. "Industrial recruitment (targeting)" and "cost competition" were prevailing up to the beginning of 1990s. By accelerating the globalization process, regions tried to renew their industries and use new market opportunities. Therefore, the last period is based on "regional competitiveness" that focuses on improving innovation and entrepreneurship in regions. A glance to the industrial development model of Iran reveals the fact that this pattern is defined by industrial recruitment strategy and import substitution policy. The combination of these strategy and policy is, in fact, a zero-sum game that led to win the central regions and loose the border regions in Iran. What stands a region as a looser or gainer is the bargaining power of native managers, Parliament members and even citizens of that region. We can interpret wide economic gap between regions in Iran by this process. Petrochemical Industry, as a noteworthy sector by national and regional managers and policymakers, is also developed and located based on industrial recruitment strategy and bargaining process. Using different analytical methods in this paper shows the fact that this strategy is inefficient and can't boost development factors. We need to transform our strategy from development of upstream petrochemical industries to downstream industries, targeting to complete product chains.

Energy as one of the most important factors of production, and as an essential product, has a significant impact on the growth and economic development of the country. Given the extensive energy resources of Iran and the negative impact of energy use on air pollution and climate change, planning for energy consumption is most important and should be undertaken with great care. In view of the close correlation between energy consumption and economic growth in Iran, determining the nature of the relationship between these two variables can be helpful in devising energy sector policies. In this research, the Granger concept of causal relationship is used to study the relationship between energy consumption in various economic sectors including (household, commercial, and industry, transportation and agriculture sectors) and economic growth in Iran during the period of 1346-85 using the Toda and Yamamoto approach.The study results reveal that there is a unidirectional Granger-causal relationship between energy use in the household, commercial and transportation sectors and economic growth. Therefore, in these sectors, an increase in energy consumption stimulates economic growth. Consequently, in these sectors instead of using policies that reduce energy use, policymakers should concentrate on policies that aim to optimize and economize on use of energy sources in order to avoid a recessionary impact. Given the lack of a Granger-causal relationship between energy consumption in industry and agriculture and economic growth, energy consumption in these sectors does not stimulate economic growth and thus energy conservation policies can be implemented in these sectors without impeding economic growth.

Oil income accounts for the lion's share of export earnings of OPEC member countries. Given the high level of volatility of the International oil market in the last four decades, it is important to understand how upward and downward price volatility impacts economic growth of these countries for optimal policy setting. This paper examines the asymmetric relationship between oil revenues and output growth in oil-exporting countries, applying a dynamic panel framework and two different measures of oil shocks. The main results of this study confirm the stylized facts that in heavily oil-dependent countries lacking the institutional mechanisms for de-linking fiscal expenditures from current revenues, oil revenue shocks tend to affect the output in asymmetric and nonlinear ways. The findings suggest that output growth is adversely affected by downward oil price shocks, while oil booms or upward oil price shocks have a limited role in stimulating economic growth. The findings have practical policy implications for macroeconomic policy making. The use of stabilization and savings funds and economic diversification are crucial to minimize the harmful effects of oil booms and busts.

The Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) is one of the most popular hypotheses in the study of the relationship between economic growth and pollution. In this paper, we test for this relationship under four conditions: (a) when the development criterion is per capita income; (b) when the development criterion is per capita energy consumption; (c) when the pollution criterion is water pollution and finally (d) when the pollution criterion is air pollution. However, before undertaking any EKC hypothesis test we determine the causality direction amongst the variables. Using the Toda-Yamamoto approach (Modified Wald test). We identify three unidirectional relations: (a) From CO2 emissions to per capita income, (b) FromCO2 emissions to per capita energy consumption, and (c) From per capita energy consumption to water pollution. The results indicate that the EKC hypothesis is not refuted for CO2-energy consumption case, but is refuted for relationships between CO2 emissions and per capita income, and water pollution and per capita energy consumption.

Sustainable development depends on cost-effective, safe and environmentally sound energy systems. To realize these goals, there is a need for innovation in energy sector technologies and the emergence of new environmentally sound technologies. The technological learning process and the learning curve concept is a good basis for analyzing technological change in the energy sector. The aim of this research is to investigate the impact of technological learning on the share and role of renewable energies, especially wind and solar energies, in Iran's power production under subsidized energy prices and after removal of subsidies. To this end, the Iran electricity sector has been modeled through a reference energy system using the MARKAL model. The results show that although technological change has a strong and considerable effect on the share of renewable technologies in Iran's power sector, price distortions caused by government interventions lead to a situation where renewable technologies are not able to compete with other conventional technologies despite the technological learning hypothesis.

Global warming has developed into a major environmental concern in recent decades. The primary source of CO2 emission and accumulation in the atmosphere is the high consumption of fossil fuels that have a major share in energy use. Therefore CO2 emission control and accumulation impacts the development of the energy sector and can change the set of feasible points for the development of the energy system. As a result different methods such as emission reduction policies, taxation and reduction of fossil fuels consumption are pursued in order to control CO2 emission and such measures are evaluated in energy models. The available energy models, do not consider environmental safety problems and the competition between different pollution control policies. Therefore, in this paper CO2 concentration reduction via environmental protection measures in the energy system is considered and in particular, the role of afforestation in view of mass balances of CO2 and cost constraints. The model identifies the best point through minimizing system costs given the constraints and the objective function Use of the model allows us to identify the impact of pollution control methods on CO2 emission and accumulation. In addition, the model allows for estimating potential reduction of CO2 emissions and comparison of met present value of different uses of available land for agriculture, pasture or forestry.