Iran's clean energy basket and air pollution
Below is an article, exclusively written by Dalga Khatinoglu, the head of Trend Agency's Iran News Service for Iranian Oil Ministry's news website Shana . While the global primary energy consumption increased by 27 percent during the last decade, Iran's energy usage rose by 80 percent. Iran's energy consumption, which also experienced a significant increase since 2001, reached 1.6 billion barrel of crude oil equivalent (OE) in 2013, about 141 million more than the previous year. Despite Iran's runaway energy consumption rate, the composition of the country's energy basket is satisfying. The share of natural gas in the country's primary energy consumption is 70 percent, while this figure in 1980 was only 10.6 percent (20 million barrels OE). According to the National Iranian Oil Refining & Distribution Company's statistics, the gas consumption level has increased 50 fold since 1980. The indicator in 2012 was 66.5 percent (1 billion