ENVIRONMENTAL ENERGY AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH
Year:2019 | Volume:3 | Issue:4|Papers Count:6

Iran’ s environmental condition is critical, since it is experiencing desertification, unsustainable development and overpopulation. The objective of this study is power source replacement in natural gas stations that operate with natural gas compressors, through using electrical motors, which can be fed by a 160 MW geothermal power plant, as an alternative to gas turbines. Application of such alternative power source will decrease greenhouse gas emissions, lower environmental costs and reduce natural gas consumption. Two economic scenarios are analyzed, with either the state or private sector act as investors of the proposed geothermal power plant. Since the new system requires 580 Million USD capital investment, if the government fully invests the project, it reduces government’ s massive annual costs about 130% and turns it from more than $80 Million/year to an income about $24 million/year. Furthermore, if the private sector invests the project and the state’ s incentive regulations be taken into account, this project will be beneficial, since its IRR is about 14%; in addition to more than 20% governmental annual cost reduction. This system can be also an economic competitor for liquid natural gas (LNG) cycles and geothermal power can also be a clean power source for LNG plants.

Considering the importance of moral considerations in the accounting profession and significant effect of accountant decisions on interests of users of financial statements and other stakeholders, the need to examine moral considerations in this profession is increasing. In this regard, this study evaluates the "moral sensitivity" of accountants who face a complex decision about earnings management and effect of non-financial elements of organizational goals such as social and environmental responsibilities, experience, and religious beliefs on "moral sensitivity" of accountants and then examine the relationship between moral sensitivity and moral judgment. The information obtained from 102 questionnaires completed by professional accountants and accounting students indicates that the presence of nonfinancial elements in organizational goals such as social and environmental responsibilities increases moral sensitivity of accountants. Based on the results of this study, companies are encouraged to consider non-financial elements including social and environmental responsibilities as well as financials issues in setting goals. Moreover, moral sensitivity of professional accountants is significantly lower than the accounting students, and those who have higher levels of religious beliefs have a higher moral sensitivity. Meanwhile, it was found that moral sensitivity has a direct relationship with negative moral assessments of earnings management. In other words, when the moral sensitivity is higher, the earnings management practice is judged more unethical.

The increase in the population of the planet and the rapid economic growth and, consequently, the high consumption of energy has created many environmental problems. Due to these reasons and the lack of renewability of these fossil fuels, there has been a steep trend towards the production of renewable fuels, one of which is the production of energy from biomass. In this study, biofuel production from biomass has been investigated using the pyrolysis method, a method that reduces the production of oil from millions of years to a few seconds, and is the most industrialized thermochemical method for producing fuel from biomass. This research focuses on thermochemical processes, pyrolysis principles, hydrothermal methods and specifications, chemical composition and applications of biofuels, and the devices and equipment needed for it. It is found from this study that producing of biofuel from biomass with pyrolysis process has to solve some problems such as size of pyrolysis plant and type of feedstock. These studies suggested more economical study for producing of biofuel from pyrolysis process and also mix feedstock to increasing production quality and test some new catalyst for upgrading of biofuel.

One of the most complicated industrial processes in today’ s world is the interaction known as the Nexus term which is between WSW, soil, water, and waste. Accordingly, the main objective of this research is to achieve a network model that can be used to determine the status of hazards with use wastewater and sewage for irrigation of agricultural land. This is an experimentallaboratory study. The methodology incorporates six main stages: Recognition of the studied area, Quantitative and qualitative assessment of surface and underground water, Determination of stability indicators and interlinkages matrices, valuation of interventionists, Comparison of interventions, and Management solutions. Results on the water quality index showed that surface water contamination at 14 sampling point was medium to very bad. 57 percent of surface water points have high pollution, 36 percent are relatively bad and 7 percent have a moderate pollution index. The results of measurement of metals in the territory of district 19 show the highest pressure in the first stage of agriculture and the next step that only four parameters of barium, lead, vanadium and zinc in some places are more than the standards of the countries environmental protection organization. According to the Nexus radar chart, the highest pressure caused by the presence of pollution in the first stage on agricultural products and in the nexus step, on the health of that area.

Municipal solid waste management is a major challenge, especially in metropolises. This research focuses on a non-technical issue in municipal solid waste management named municipal solid waste separation at the source and seeks to find the best policy in terms of model results. Source separation for recycling has been recognized as a way to achieve sustainable municipal solid waste (MSW) management. The research questions are what factors affect municipal solid waste separation at the source, what the relationships between them are, and which the best policy to increase municipal solid waste separation at the source is. In this research delphi analysis and fuzzy cognitive mapping are used. After identifying 29 factors affecting the waste separation at the source and adjusting them to 9 factors according to the experts' opinions, due to direct causal relationships between the factors and their analysis with the fuzzy cognitive mapping, the factors network affecting the generation of waste were designed. By delphi analysis and expert gathering, three policies were applied to increase waste separation at the source. After analyzing each of the policies, the percentage of change in waste separation was calculated using fuzzy cognitive mapping and the most favorable policy, respectively, was the second policy (Emphasis on culturing), the first policy (Emphasis on encouragement and fines) and, ultimately, The third policy (Emphasis on physical infrastructure) was identified. Indeed as it turns out, the most favorable policy is the second with an increase of 13% in waste separation at the source. The innovation of this study is to study all the factors affecting the separation of municipal solid waste in one place and adjust them according to Tehran. In addition, this research for the first time brought the relationships between these factors into a holistic network. In this study, a tool has been designed to measure the impact of different policies on waste separation rate.

The purpose of this paper is to examined the empirical effects of stocks traded-total value, foreign direct investment, number of students, and fossil fuel energy consumption on nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions in Iran using time series data for the period 1978– 2012. To achieve this goal, we applied the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach. Findings indicate that foreign direct investment, fossil fuel energy consumption, and number of students stimulate NO2 emissions in the long run. Based on these findings, the study recommends that Iran reduce emissions by expanding its existing Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage plants; capitalizing on its vast solar and wind energy; reducing high subsidies of the residential electricity scheme; and aggressively investing in energy research to build expertise for achieving electricity generation efficiency. It must be noted that greenhouse gas reduction policies cannot produce immediate results in changing wind and precipitation patterns and thus mitigating climate change effects.