User:VigenSimonyan789/sandbox

Introduction to the Republic of Armenia and its Energy Sector
Armenia is a landlocked country located in the Southern Caucasus. It borders with Georgia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran. The consumption of its energy comes from five main sources:

 Coal does not have substantial role in energy production of Republic of Armenia, which is a big step towards creating non-harmful energy for the Armenian ecology.
 * Natural Gas, 42%, is mainly imported from Russian Federation and the importing company is "PAO Gazprom"
 * Nuclear, 38% of total energy production, the main manufacturing grid is Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant
 * Hydro thermal, 19%, because Armenia is rich of rivers, it has numerous small hydro thermal power plants across the rivers. Several prominent ones are: Hrazdan TPP, Hrazdan 5, Yerevan CCHP
 * Wind and small HPPs, 12%, Wind power plants can be found in "Pushkin sad" which is located in capital Yerevan, Sevan-Hrazdan Cascade of HPPs

Armenian Ecology
According to a Norges Naturvernforbund " Armenia’s environment became severely polluted during the Soviet period. The Soviet government pushed heavy industry development to a massive scale, throughout the Soviet Union. The government ignored the environmental harm caused by these industries for too long... " The primary reasons for having that kind of state were mining and metallurgy, production of energy and other small-scale manufacturing activities. However, currently Armenia ranks 48 among all countries in Environmental Performance Index and its position has been significantly improving in comparison to previous years which basically means that the Government of Republic of Armenia assigns more and more attention to clean environment. It should be noted that Armenia has the highest index among its neighboring countries: Georgia (101), Azerbaijan (63), Russia (73) and Turkey (66). 

Natural Gas and its effects on Armenian ecology
Armenia does not have reserves of natural gas. That is why there is no production in the country and thus no emissions in the production of gas. Gas is imported from Russia and covers a lot of spheres of Armenian economy. A significant proportion of car drivers replaced petrolium with gas due to its low price. The demand for NGVs grew so high that currently Armenia ranks the first in the world in terms of the proportion of NGVs in the whole car population of the country according to Natural Gas Vehicle Global. Adding to this the scientific fact that combustion of gas has far less rate of emissions than combustion of oil or petrolium we will get that gas significantly helped to reduce the negative environmental impacts of car driving in Armenia. Also, gas replaced wood as a source of heat in residential areas. Cutting forests was a big issue especially in 1991-1995 energy crisis. Large forests were cut all over Armenia to meet heat demands in the very cold winters. That situation would continue if gas did not replace wood as a heat source. Overall, gas significantly helped to reduce harmful environmental impacts of electricity and generally heat production.