Summary Reports by Abbas Maleki
Summary Report 24, 2018
This report provides a summary of the "Environmental Politics in the Middle East" research initia... more This report provides a summary of the "Environmental Politics in the Middle East" research initiative, which explores the geopolitics of natural resources in the Middle East in an attempt to expand the focus to include the region’s many natural resources other than natural gas, such as land, air, water, and food. Some of the issues under investigation include a focus on water scarcity, which is a global issue but one that is particularly acute in the Middle East; its impacts are examined through a case study on Yemen. Food security is studied in the case of Syria, which before the civil war began, in 2011, was one of the region’s notable food exporters. Aside from acute food shortages within Syria, the conflict has had ripple effects on the region and has led to rising food prices in neighboring states, such as Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq.
Book Teasers by Abbas Maleki
Book Teaser, 2018
This book investigates how ecology and politics meet in the Middle East and how those interaction... more This book investigates how ecology and politics meet in the Middle East and how those interactions connect to the global political economy. Through region-wide analyses and case studies from the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf of Aden, the Levant and North Africa, the volume highlights the intimate connections of environmental activism, energy infrastructure and illicit commodity trading with the political economies of Central Asia, the Horn of Africa and the Indian subcontinent. The book’s nine chapters analyse how the exploitation and representation of the environment have shaped the history of the region—and determined its place in global politics. It argues that how the ecological is understood, instrumentalised and intervened upon is the product of political struggle: deconstructing ideas and practices of environmental change means unravelling claims of authority and legitimacy. This is particularly important in a region frequently seen through the prism of environmental determinism, where ruling elites have imposed authoritarian control as the corollary of ‘environmental crisis’. This unique and urgent collection will question much of what we think we know about this pressing issue.
Papers by Abbas Maleki
International Journal of Energy and Water Resources, 2021
Establishment of demand security is a key incentive to boosting oil and gas investments in countr... more Establishment of demand security is a key incentive to boosting oil and gas investments in countries, thus, making the study of demand security also critical. In the present research, the primary aim is to explore the capacity of Caspian Markets in establishing energy demand security in the Caspian region and investigate its impact on oil and gas exports from the region. Therefore, additional factors such as political issues, international support and geographical limitations should also be considered for the determination of energy demand security. To address this need, a hybrid index is proposed that characterizes energy demand security in the Caspian region. In this research, we have looked at the countries of the Caspian region as a collective identity and we have avoided looking at the particular country of the Caspian region. In this study, we have used analytic hierarchy process (AHP method) to make hybrid index (Caspian energy demand security index). Results produced by the ...
Environmental Politics in the Middle East, 2018
This chapter examines the politics of the natural resources of the Caspian Sea as littoral states... more This chapter examines the politics of the natural resources of the Caspian Sea as littoral states vie for dominance on energy resources and its routes to the world markets against a background of climate change, region-wide sustainability challenges, and local pollution. The Caspian is in full transformation and solving these problems will require a shift in regional politics towards environmental cooperation and political integration. However, the inherent challenges of such a new approach are compounded by the landlocked position of Caspian countries, uncertainty among littoral states as to each other’s intentions and a decaying infrastructure, last updated in the Soviet era.
International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management, 2021
As part of its Paris Agreement commitment, Iran pledged to decrease 4 percent of its carbon dioxi... more As part of its Paris Agreement commitment, Iran pledged to decrease 4 percent of its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from 2020 to 2030. About 29% of total emission in Iran belongs to electricity supply while energy consumption in other sectors (transport, household, and industry) have a lower share in CO2 emission. The main concern here is finding the optimal mix of power plants in the electricity supply system that should be deployed to meet Iran’s mentioned respective targets. So, we developed a non-linear mathematical programming model for Iran’s electricity system to address this concern. Results show that a 10-20% diffusion of renewable energy and converting gas turbine power plants to gas combined cycle technology with 5% annual rate can satisfy Iran’s emissions pledge under the Paris Climate Accord. Finally, this model has been run for years between 2017-2030. Four scenarios have also been prepared based on different Iranian Five-Year Development Plans.
Energy Conversion and Management: X, 2021
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2021
Previous empirical research about the functions of innovative systems has been less enabled to pr... more Previous empirical research about the functions of innovative systems has been less enabled to present practical strategies for managers' decisions. The main purpose of this paper is to prioritize strategic innovative upstream technologies in the oil industry for policy-making and commercializing within the framework of energy technological innovation systems. This paper proposes a novel fuzzy approach based on distance from ideals to scrutinize the effects of effective criteria on the policy-making process and rank new and essential technologies in various fields of the oil industry namely materials, services, and equipment. The developed fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method is applied to select the best strategic innovation technology. Due to the importance of selecting the best technology, several decision-makers (DMs) who are experts in their areas of expertise are applied. In order to increase the accuracy of the results, a new subjective and objective approach is introduced to calculate the weight of DMs' opinions. One of the advantages of this approach is considering both DMs’ resume and opinions in the decision-making process. It should be noted that due to the management of real-world uncertainty as well as increasing the accuracy of results in applying DMs’ opinions in computations, trapezoidal fuzzy sets are used in all stages of computation. A case study about upstream technologies of Iran’s oil industry is introduced and solved by the presented method. To demonstrate the accuracy of the results and review the advantages of the presented approach, a comparative analysis with a recent literature study is performed.
U.S.-Iran Misperceptions: A Dialogue, 2014
Acknowledgements List of Contributors 1. U.S.-Iran Misperceptions: Invitation to a Dialogue, by A... more Acknowledgements List of Contributors 1. U.S.-Iran Misperceptions: Invitation to a Dialogue, by Abbas Maleki and John Tirman 2. The United States and Iran: Perceptions and Policy Traps, by Robert Jervis 3. Iranian Perceptions of U.S. Policy towards Iran: Ayatollah Khamenei's Mindset, by Seyed Hossein Mousavian 4. American Perceptions of Iran's Policy towards the United States 5. Iran's Perception of the U.S. Policy towards the Region, by Kayhan Barzegar 6. America's Perceptions of Iran's Policy towards the Region, by John Tirman 7. The Future of U.S.-Iran Relations, by Huss Banai 8. Improving U.S.-Iranian Relations and Overcoming Perceptual Biases, by Abbas Maleki and Robert Reardon Bibliography Index
Energy Sources, Part B: Economics, Planning, and Policy, 2016
Vanguardia dossier, 2007
... | Ayuda. ¿A dónde va Irán? análisis de futuro y posibles escenarios. Autores: AbbasMaleki; Lo... more ... | Ayuda. ¿A dónde va Irán? análisis de futuro y posibles escenarios. Autores: AbbasMaleki; Localización: Vanguardia dossier, ISSN 1579-3370, Nº. 24, 2007 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Irán por dentro) , pags. 28-35. © 2001-2010 ...
About 70% of gas flaring in the whole world produces in less than 20 countries whereas more than ... more About 70% of gas flaring in the whole world produces in less than 20 countries whereas more than 70 bcm of it is generated in just four of the mentioned countries. Iran flared 400 bcf of gas in 2011. In this paper, five options of Iran's gas flare recovery have been compared via MCDM method. For developing the model, the weighing factor of each indicator an AHP method is used via the Expert-choice software. Two groups of cases were considered in this analysis. One group was designed with priority given to individual indicators, while the other indicators had the same value, and the second group consisted of cases where the priorities were defined always keeping one criterion in first position, while the priorities of the other criteria were defined by ordinal information defining the mutual relations of the criteria and the respective indicators.
An agent-based model is employed for simulating the price of oil futures. The model proceeds as f... more An agent-based model is employed for simulating the price of oil futures. The model proceeds as follows: On each time step agents choose their rule for price expectation formation. Next, they bid and ask based on their price and trend expectations. The new price is formed using "the market mechanism". Finally, the time steps forward and the process is repeated in the next day. The agents use 6 different rules to make price and trend expectations. Brent future prices in a 2-year-period (2010-2011) and in 2012 are used for model calibration and validation, respectively. It was shown that market participants weigh U.S. stocks data more than other factors, while OECD stock's data were not that important for the market. It was also inferred that the market does not weigh the technical aspects of the oil price as much as the fundamental aspects.
Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues, 2020
This book investigates how ecology and politics meet in the Middle East and how those interaction... more This book investigates how ecology and politics meet in the Middle East and how those interactions connect to the global political economy. Through region-wide analyses and case studies from the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf of Aden, the Levant and North Africa, the volume highlights the intimate connections of environmental activism, energy infrastructure and illicit commodity trading with the political economies of Central Asia, the Horn of Africa and the Indian subcontinent. The book's nine chapters analyze how the exploitation and representation of the environment have shaped the history of the region--and determined its place in global politics. It argues that how the ecological is understood, instrumentalized and intervened upon is the product of political struggle: deconstructing ideas and practices of environmental change means unravelling claims of authority and legitimacy. This is particularly important in a region frequently seen through the prism of environmental deter...
International Journal of Sustainable Energy Planning and Management, 2020
This paper presents a comprehensive model on the expansion of non-fossil technology to evaluate t... more This paper presents a comprehensive model on the expansion of non-fossil technology to evaluate the impact of increasing their share in Iran’s electricity supply system. This analytical approach is based on system dynamics (SD), with an emphasis on the expansion of non-fossil fuels in the supply side of this model. Four emerging electricity generation technologies of solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, expansion turbines, and hydro power are considered in the model, and the effect of electricity price on increasing the motivation of the owners of non-fossil fuel power plants to guarantee their 20% share is examined. The Iranian government has set a target of a 20% share of non-fossil fuel electricity generation by 2030, whose main result is reducing GHG emissions to achieve the targets pledged under the Paris Climate Accord. Therefore, we developed four scenarios with different expansions of non-fossil technologies in Iran’s electricity system to investigate the goal, though various...
The Iranian government has set a target of a 20% share of non-fossil fuel electricity generation ... more The Iranian government has set a target of a 20% share of non-fossil fuel electricity generation by 2030, whose main result is reducing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions (about 182 million tonnes in 2017) to achieve the targets pledged under the Paris Climate Accord. So, this paper presents a comprehensive model on the expansion of non-fossil technology to evaluate the impact of increasing their share in Iran’s electricity supply system. This analytical approach is based on system dynamics (SD) that was developed based on dynamic behavior of electricity market, with an emphasis on the expansion of non-fossil fuels (solar photovoltaics, wind turbines, expansion turbines, and hydro power) in the supply side of this model by electricity price reformation. For this purpose, we developed four scenarios with different share percent of non-fossil technologies in Iran’s electricity system. The findings demonstrate that electricity price must be determined based on the costs of non-fossil tech...
Most countries engage in cultural, social, economic and political exchanges via land and sea with... more Most countries engage in cultural, social, economic and political exchanges via land and sea with their neighbours. Two countries are perhaps exceptional in terms of the large number of countries neighbouring them. These two are Iran and Russia. A glance at the two countries’ geography indicates that Russia’s vast territorial expanse and Iran’s special location have given them (taken together) borders with 15 other states. They are also exposed to the disadvantages and threats inherent in having such extensive borders. Russia is a Euro-Asian country, the largest country on earth with the richest natural resources, and it includes the areas which have been called the ‘Heartland’.1 Iran is a Middle Eastern and Asian country, a bridge linking western Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It is characterized by huge oil and gas resources, impenetrable mountains and access to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf. Its importance derives not only from its geopolitical position but also fr...
Journal of International Studies
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Summary Reports by Abbas Maleki
Book Teasers by Abbas Maleki
Papers by Abbas Maleki