Debating Unconventional Energy: Social, Political, and Economic Implications (original) (raw)

Managing Unconventional Oil and Gas Development as if Communities Mattered

2016

The advent of horizontal oil and gas drilling into relatively impermeable shale rock, and the companion technological breakthrough of high-pressure, multi-stage fracking that frees hydrocarbons along the substantial length of these horizontal wells, has fundamentally altered the oil and gas industry. The Energy Information Administration has gone so far as to predict that North America could become a net energy exporter as early as 2019, largely as a result of the explosive growth of this “unconventional” oil and gas development.2 Despite its promise, managing unconventional oil and gas development has proved challenging, and many of the communities that find themselves hosting this development have begun to push back in the face of serious public health and community impact concerns. Some communities have gone so far as to enact complete bans on “fracking,” the shorthand way that unconventional development is often described. Yet notwithstanding many legitimate concerns, the flexib...

Introduction: Shale Gas and the Future of Energy

EnergyRN: Natural Gas (Topic), 2016

This is the introduction to the first book systematically exploring the relationship between shale gas and sustainable development, Shale Gas and the Future of Energy: Law and Policy for Sustainability (Edward Elgar 2016). It describes the growing importance of unconventional shale gas and the evolution of sustainable development as a policy norm, and explains that there has been little analysis of the relationship between unconventional shale gas and sustainability. The introduction then summarizes twelve chapters by the contributing authors, who are not only lawyers and current and former policy makers, but also from public health, the social sciences, economics, and other disciplines. Each chapter addresses (1) what sustainability means for their particular topic, (2) what various governmental entities and private sector parties are doing to foster sustainability on this topic, and (3) recommendations for ways to foster sustainable practices in shale gas development. Their chapte...

Resource-making controversies: knowledge, anticipatory politics and economization of unconventional fossil fuels

Progress in Human Geography, 2019

Advancing relational accounts of 'resource-making' processes by deploying insights from science and technology studies, this article outlines crucial new lines of inquiry for geographical research on unconventional fossil fuels. The exploitation of various carbon-rich substitutes for hydrocarbons has rapidly expanded over the last two decades, to become a highly contentious issue which augments scientific dissensus and generates new collective engagements with the subsurface. The article invites geographers to examine the epistemically and politically transformative potential of such resource-making controversies in terms of reconfiguring: the production of geoscientific knowledge, anticipation of post-conventional energy systems, and temporal strategies of (de)economizing extractive futures.

Confronting An Uncertain Future How US Communities are Responding to Shale Gas and Oil Development

"Fracking" (horizontal drilling / high volume hydraulic fracturing) for shale gas and oil is a widespread, industrializing endeavor that will affect a variety of regions in the majority of US states. This chapter assays what we know historically about natural resource development cycles in general, the particular social and economic impacts and local government responses associated with unconventional fossil fuel development in the US, and what our existing knowledge implies for planning and the design of policies that will address the risks of shale development and sustain affected communities through the boom-bust cycle and for the long term.

A decade of Marcellus Shale: Impacts to people, policy, and culture from 2008 to 2018 in the Greater Mid-Atlantic region of the United States

The Extractive Industries and Society

It's been just over a decade since Unconventional Oil and Gas development began in earnest in the Marcellus Shale, a dense shale formation that, along with the deeper and larger Utica Shale, covers much of the mid-Atlantic United States. Since January 2008, approximately 15,939 wells have been drilled and fracked at 5674 sites across these shales. This decennial documents the pace, scale, and stages of actual development and takes stock of the social science on impacts to communities, people, policies, and culture. We have divided this article into the following sections that are categorized both geographically and thematically: Pennsylvania: Heart of the Marcellus Shale Play, focuses on the plethora of social science research that has occurred on impacts to Pennsylvania communities, health, economics, and agricultural production; West Virginia and Ohio: Legacies of Extraction discusses research on the overlapping historical legacies of extractive industries in the region and details results of original research examining perceived impacts to residents amid complex historical natural resource lineages; and New York: Fracking, Culture and Politics examines how the regulatory process to develop the Marcellus Shale affected both the state and nation's culture, politics, and policy as one of the most densely populated regions of the US came to grips with hosting the modern-day Oil and Gas Industry. We conclude with a discussion of emerging research opportunities and directions as a new generation of social scientists document future development in the Marcellus and Utica Shales. This decennial documents the pace, scale, and stages of actual development and takes stock of the social science on impacts to communities, people, policies, and culture. We have divided this article into the following sections that are categorized both geographically and thematically: Pennsylvania: Heart of the Marcellus Shale Play, focuses on the plethora of social science research that has occurred on impacts to Pennsylvania communities, health, economics, and agricultural production; West Virginia and Ohio: Legacies of Extraction discusses research on the overlapping historical legacies of extractive industries in the region and details results of original research examining perceived impacts to residents amid complex historical natural resource lineages; and New York: Fracking, Culture and Politics examines how the regulatory process to develop the Marcellus Shale affected both the

Socio-economic impacts of unconventional fossil fuel extraction: a discussion and conceptual model

As global energy demand increases, the rapid expansion of the unconventional fossil fuel sector has triggered an urgent need for social, economic and policy research to understand and predict how this sector affects host communities and how governance systems can respond to changes presented by this sector. In response to this need, this paper addresses three linked objectives. The first is to review the literature on regional impacts of energy extraction, presented in the form of a framework of hierarchical effects. The second is to consider how these are playing out differently in the context of conventional compared with unconventional fossil fuels. The third is to draw attention to the institutional avenues for addressing these impacts, including an overview of the lessons from existing research on the human and policy dimensions associated with conventional energy industries. In particular, we consider the importance of multi-stakeholder dialogue, which plays an important role in how regions respond to the challenges brought about through extractive industries. Overall, we demonstrate that experiences from conventional energy development provide a useful starting point for navigating the human and policy dimensions of unconventional energy for host communities and discuss how these experiences differ when unconventional energy seeks to co-exist with other land uses such as agriculture. The paper draws attention to the dispersed nature of impacts (positive and negative) and how this may shape winners and losers from unconventional energy development, particularly in regions with pre-existing land uses such as agriculture.

Selling 'Fracking': Energy in Depth and the Marcellus Shale

The development of horizontal hydraulic fracture drilling or “fracking” has allowed for the extraction of deep, unconventional shale gas deposits in various shale seams throughout the USA. One such shale seam, the Marcellus shale, extends through New York State, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, where shale gas development has rapidly increased within the last decade. This has created a boom of economic activity surrounding the energy industry. However, this bounty comes with risks to environmental and public health and has led to divisive community polarization over the issue in the Marcellus shale region. In the face of potential environmental and social disruption, and a great deal of controversy surrounding “fracking” the oil and gas industry has had to undertake a myriad of public relations initiatives to legitimize their extraction efforts in the Marcellus shale region, and to frame the shale gas boom in a positive light to stakeholders. This article investigates one such public relations initiative, the Energy in Depth (EID) Northeast Marcellus Initiative. Through qualitative content analysis of EID’s online web material, this article examines the ways in which the industry presents and frames natural gas development to the general public. Through appeals to patriotism, the use of environmental imagery, and a claimed commitment to scientific reason, the oil and gas industry uses EID to frame the shale gas extraction process in a positive light, all the while framing those who question or oppose the processes of shale gas extraction as irrational obstructionists