Impacts of Energy Transition in Iran on Vulnerability of Infrastructure to Natural Hazards

Energy, as a fundamental component of modern society and life, has a direct impact on each human activity and plays a critical role in socio-economic development. Indeed, energy is deeply embedded in each component of mankind development: economic, social and environmental ones. Energy is a crucial element for functioning of modern society and any break down in the energy sector, which affects energy supply, has negative impacts on all other economic sectors and spheres of human activity. Iran is an energy superpower, which has the fourth largest oil reserves and the second largest natural gas reserves in the world. Energy consumption in Iran is significantly higher than international standards and continues to grow. Iran has the third highest level of consumption of natural gas in the world and its domestic consumption is projected to grow by making Iran the largest natural gas consumer in the world. Despite abundance of fossil fuels, Iran is considering deployment of renewable energies sources and these plans are driving energy transition in the country

Impacts of Human Factors on Willingness to Use Renewable Energy Sources in Iran and Morocco

Currently Iran and Morocco are going through an energy transition. Ambitious plans exist at international, regional and national governance levels to deploy renewable energy sources (RES), such as concentrated solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV) solar power. These plans foresee deployment of RES to cover local growing energy needs, to diversify energy supply and to benefit from electricity trade. Even though the majority of MENA countries have favorable geographic conditions, namely, the level of solar irradiance, for deployment of solar projects, they are very diverse in terms of availability of fossil fuels, which might hinder deployment of RES projects. For instance, Morocco is covering almost 95% of its energy needs by imports at the same time as Iran is not only benefiting from availability of fossil fuels for local consumption but are also exporting fossil fuels to the global markets. The first question of this paper is trying to answer is how availability of fossil fuels for domestic consumption might impact the willingness of people in Iran and Morocco to use RES. And secondly how public acceptance of RES in general, and solar projects in particular effects the development of RES projects in this region. The methodological basis of this paper is formed by the case study method of two countries. It also includes different methods of elicitation of opinions and views to understand public acceptance and willingness to use renewable energy. By comparing Iran and Morocco we aim to understand to which extent availability of non-renewable energy sources in in these two countries influence perceptions of its inhabitants regarding RES energy

Studying young people’ views on deployment of renewable energy sources in Iran through the lenses of Social Cognitive Theory

Renewable energy sources (RES) have potentials to address goals of climate change mitigation at the global level. Iran has abundant RES potentials and investment into renewable energy sources can contribute to its socio-economic development and to diversification of its energy mix. Economic and technical capacities but also human factors, such as stakeholders’ views, public and social acceptance, as well as willingness to use RES, willingness to pay for their deployment and to participate in decision-making processes on energy transition, are crucial factors for deployment of RES at scale. These human factors impact development and implementation of energy transition at the national and local governance levels. Deployment of new technology and energy transition can lead to conflicting views, believes and risks perceptions among involved stakeholders but also among people affected by deployment of new technology infrastructure deployment. To be sustainable and acceptable by all social groups, such process should be based on understanding of positions of different stakeholders and development of compromise solutions. It is crucial to understand the views of young people on deployment of RES as young people represent a significant share of population and are future decision makers. Their support and willingness to use RES will be a significant driver for RES deployment in short and medium term. Based on socio cognitive theory this paper examines the patters of behavior of young adults in relation to energy use. The results show positive influence of self-rewarding to encourage young adults to participate in energy transition. Another important driver is expectation of social outcome, which involves existing social norms in the community. Trust to the source of information is another important driver and the level of information about RES has an important influence on the willingness to use them

Impacts of human factors on willingness to use

Currently the Middle East and North African (MENA) region is going through energy transition. Ambitious plans exist at international, regional and national governance levels to deploy renewable energy sources (RES), such as concentrated solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV) solar power to cover local growing energy needs, to diversify energy supply and to benefit from electricity trade. Even though the majority of MENA countries have favorable geographic conditions, namely, the level of solar irradiance, for deployment of solar projects, they are very diverse in terms of availability of fossil fuels, which might hinder deployment of RES projects. For instance, the countries like Morocco are covering almost 95% of their energy needs by imports at the same time the countries like Iran, Egypt or Algeria are not only benefiting from availability of fossil fuels for local consumption but are also exporting energy from fossil fuels on the global markets. The question of this paper is how availability of fossil fuels for domestic consumption might impact the willingness to use and public acceptance of RES, in general, and of solar projects, in particular, among lay people. The methodological basis of this paper is formed by the case study method of two countries and by different methods of elicitation of stakeholders’ opinions and views to understand public acceptance and willingness to use renewable energy. By comparing Iran and Morocco we aim to understand to which extent availability of non-renewable energy sources in Iran influence perceptions of its inhabitants regarding RES energy

Distributed formation control of networked mechanical systems

This paper investigates a distributed formation tracking control law for large-scale networks of mechanical systems. In particular, the formation network is represented by a directed communication graph with leaders and followers, where each agent is described as a port-Hamiltonian system with a constant mass matrix. Moreover, we adopt a distributed parameter approach to prove the scalable asymptotic stability of the network formation, i.e., the scalability with respect to the network size and the specific formation preservation. A simulation case illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed control approach.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure

Some at Risk for COVID-19 Are Reluctant to Take Precautions, but Others Are Not: A Case from Rural Iran

Little is known about the evaluative and cognitive foundations for adopting preventive measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Recognizing the existence of a gap in the knowledge describing the intention and behavior of participating in health measures, this study investigated the drivers that contribute to the intention to take health protective measures among 305 rural youth from the Dashtestan Region, Bushehr Province, southwestern Iran, reached through an online survey. Protection motivation theory (PMT) served as the theoretical framework for the study. It was able to forecast variation in intentions and behaviors with accuracies of 39% and 64%, respectively. Furthermore, the variables of response efficiency, perceived severity, and self-efficacy had a positive and significant effect on protective intentions. Additionally, perceived severity, self-efficacy, and intention produced a positive and significant impression on behaviors, with most of the behavioral variance being accounted for by the intention, as was hypothesized. In conclusion, it is suggested that health development including training measures that take account of both the concrete issues of health resources and technologies and of more abstract ones, such as mindset readiness, are important for engagement in positive health care behaviors. Accordingly, training-based interventions for rural youth should be contemplated, with the object of changing their intentions

Iranian agriculture advisors’ perception and intention toward biofuel: green way toward energy security, rural development and climate change mitigation

Agricultural professionals play an important role in informing and educating farmers about biofuel through teaching or extension work. One of the questions commonly asked is if they are knowledgeable and possess positive attitude towards renewable energy sources. The aim of this article is to investigate Agricultural professionals’ attitude and willingness towards biofuel using a random sample of professionals (n =180) in a survey conducted in Zanjan province in Iran. Structural equation modeling showed that “Outcome efficacy”, “problem perception” and “perceived benefits” can significantly predict just about 38% variance of Agricultural professionals’ personal norm. In turn, personal norm can predict 35% variance of Agricultural professionals’ willingness. The findings yield public policy recommendations for stimulating biofuel extension and deployment among Agricultural professionals

Method for electrostatic deposition of graphene on a substrate

A method for electrostatic deposition of graphene on a substrate comprises the steps of securing a graphite sample to a first electrode; electrically connecting the first electrode to a positive terminal of a power source; electrically connecting a second electrode to a ground terminal of the power source; placing the substrate over the second electrode; and using the power source to apply a voltage, such that graphene is removed from the graphite sample and deposited on the substrate

When ‘Fear Factors’ Motivate People to Adopt Electric Vehicles in India: An Empirical Investigation of the Protection Motivation Theory

Climatic extremes have caused immense harm around the world. Its harm in terms of the proportion of people and regions affected continues to increase every single day. Due to people’s psychological distance from such climatic threats, active initiatives are not undertaken for mitigation of its source. Rather, localized short-term solutions are marking a new status-quo. This study examines if fear can be used as a motivator to nudge people away from the psychological distance and motivate them to adopt electric vehicles (EVs). While subsidies and tax rebates are popularly adopted means to boost demand and supply of EVs, monetary incentives are costly to sustain for developing nations, amidst their diverse priorities. Instead, use of motivators like ‘fear’ is cheap, yet not much explored. Using the protection motivation theory, the study interviews 1112 Indian individuals, to examine if fear can nudge EV adoption. Using structural equation modeling and mediation analysis, the study finds that the expectation of personal harm from climatic threats can nudge one to actively mitigate the source of threat. Various aspects of threat and the associated coping processes that need to be triggered sequentially to nudge the formation of a pro-environmental intention to adopt EVs are also outlined