Shale Gas Policy Research Articles

‘Going through the dance steps’: Instrumentality, frustration and performativity in processes of formal public participation in decision-making on shale development in the United Kingdom

We employ a mixed-method approach to analyse four forms of formal public participation in decision-making on shale development in the UK – planning, environmental permitting, public consultation and dialogue workshops. We focus analytically on the kinds of issues that can be raised effectively in such processes and the scope for public influence. This focus is conceptually inspired by literatures on public participation from Science and Technology Studies and on energy infrastructure planning disputes, with our findings building on existing work on public participation in decision-making on UK shale development. We also conduct local community interviews in the Fylde, Lancashire, UK, in order to understand how these processes are viewed by those who have participated in them. We find that these formal participatory opportunities generally tightly restrict the types of issues that are open for discussion, narrowing the scope for public influence. Some of these forms of participation (public consultations and dialogue workshops) take on an instrumental character, serving as a tool to help achieve the policy aim of facilitating a domestic industry. Others (planning and environmental permitting) are designed to be insensitive to public questioning of that policy aim. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, many of our local community interviewees saw these processes as performative exercises in the legitimation of UK government shale gas policy.

Induced seismicity or political ploy?: Using a novel mix of methods to identify multiple publics and track responses over time to shale gas policy change

To date, little research has investigated how public perceptions of policies to ban or restrict fossil-fuel extraction change over time; yet this topic is of crucial importance as countries worldwide seek to transition towards ‘net zero’ economies. This study addresses this gap by focusing on public responses to the 2019 moratorium on shale gas extraction in England, using an analytical framework comprising awareness, interpretations and opinions, and a mixed-method approach combining national survey, social media and local case interviews. Findings show high levels of awareness and support for the moratorium, yet differences between coalitions of interest based on ideology, scale and demographics. Social media analyses reveal a peak in public response across several days during a general election campaign in which different parties took divergent positions on shale gas. Public support for the moratorium – and induced seismicity as the primary reason for its introduction - was evidenced by the national survey, yet coincided with scepticism about its timing, extent and motivation, as indicated by social media activity and local case interviews. For some publics, the moratorium was a ploy to ensure electoral support, embedded in public distrust. This study indicates the merits of a mixed-method approach to understand the psychological and institutional context of public responses to policy change as it unfolds over time, and discusses the longer term implications of politicised attitudes for energy transitions.

Lagging and Flagging: Air Pollution, Shale Gas Exploration and the Interaction of Policy, Science, Ethics and Environmental Justice in England.

The science on the effects of global climate change and air pollution on morbidity and mortality is clear and debate now centres around the scale and precise contributions of particular pollutants. Sufficient data existed in recent decades to support the adoption of precautionary public health policies relating to fossil fuels including shale exploration. Yet air quality and related public health impacts linked to ethical and environmental justice elements are often marginalized or missing in planning and associated decision making. Industry and government policies and practices, laws and planning regulations lagged well behind the science in the United Kingdom. This paper explores the reasons for this and what shaped some of those policies. Why did shale gas policies in England fail to fully address public health priorities and neglect ethical and environmental justice concerns. To answer this question, an interdisciplinary analysis is needed informed by a theoretical framework of how air pollution and climate change are largely discounted in the complex realpolitik of policy and regulation for shale gas development in England. Sources, including official government, regulatory and planning documents, as well as industry and scientific publications are examined and benchmarked against the science and ethical and environmental justice criteria. Further, our typology illustrates how the process works drawing on an analysis of official policy documents and statements on planning and regulatory oversight of shale exploration in England, and material from industry and their consultants relating to proposed shale oil and gas development. Currently the oil, gas and chemical industries in England continue to dominate and influence energy and feedstock-related policy making to the detriment of ethical and environmental justice decision making with significant consequences for public health.

Strategic ignorance and politics of time: how expert knowledge framed shale gas policies

ABSTRACT This article addresses the various uses of expert knowledge during the controversy over shale gas in France and in Quebec (Canada). Cross-fertilization between policy analysis and science and technology studies demonstrates that political uses of expertise better explained the policymaking process in focusing on two specific utilizations: strategic ignorance and politics of time. Using data from press analysis, interviews, reports and documentation analysis, this article shows that social movements can also use strategic ignorance to support their environmental claims and that mastering the pace of the controversy and the policy debates enabled actors to better support their policy claims. The French case illustrates those two arguments while the Quebec case provides a more tradition account of State/Industry’s utilization of knowledge production to delay decision and divert opposition.

Problem Orientated Analysis on China’s Shale Gas Policy

China has accelerated the pace of shale gas development from 2010. A series of policies were issued by the Chinese government to motivate and regulate shale gas exploration and exploitation. In order to investigate the effectiveness of these policies and provide reference to the policymakers, the most relevant policies from 2010 to 2016 were collected and analyzed. Our study summarized that, in total, eight government agencies issued 25 related policies, which cover all the main problems that impede China’s shale gas industry. With the aid of these policies, the approved research and development (R&D) funds exceed 350 million Chinese yuan (CNY) ($55 million), and over 80 domestic companies participated in exploration rights bidding and nine foreign companies initiated thirteen international cooperation projects. In 2016, China’s shale gas production reached 7.88 × 109 m3, ranking third in the world. However, these policies still have some shortcomings, such as low environmental concerns, weak financial stimulus, and inefficient implementation. Therefore, we suggest that future policy should put particular emphasis on (1) formulating special environmental regulations and determining development scale based on water resource; (2) providing detailed implementation plans and maintaining stable subsidy; (3) enhancing communication and supervision; and (4) establishing a public big data platform.

UK public beliefs about fracking and effects of knowledge on beliefs and support: A problem for shale gas policy

This paper discusses a survey of public opinions on hydraulic fracturing (‘fracking’) for shale gas, conducted with a representative sample of 1745 British adults. Unusually, it examines beliefs about positive and negative statements about fracking as well as support/opposition. A majority of respondents correctly answered an initial question testing basic knowledge of shale gas extraction. More respondents supported fracking in Britain (36%) than opposed it (32%) but only 22% supported fracking locally, while 45% were opposed. Respondents were more united in negative beliefs than positive beliefs about fracking. More knowledgeable participants held more polarised views and were significantly more likely than others to agree with negative statements and to oppose fracking in their local area. More respondents disagreed than agreed that it is possible to compensate for fracking risks by payments to local communities. Policy implications include: increasing public knowledge about fracking will not necessarily lead to more positive beliefs and support regarding shale gas developments; promoting alleged economic benefits of shale gas is not enough to ensure support; engaging in genuinely inclusive participatory decision-making may be more likely to increase support than offering payments to communities; alternatively, developing more renewable energy capacity promises to be more popular than fracking.

On the complexity of ethical claims related to shale gas policy

In a recent article in Local Environment, Matthew Cotton (2017) lays out a foundation for what an ethical approach to decision making on policy and planning in relation to shale gas development could look like. This is the most comprehensive attempt in peer-reviewed academic literature to characterise and explicate the requirements and constraints on ethically-justified policy in relation to this contentious extractive industry. Cotton (2017) uses Shrader-Frechette’s (2002) Principle of Prima Facie Political Equality (PPFPE) to critique policy and planning decisions in the UK in relation to shale gas development. The PPFPE focuses heavily on distributive and procedural justice and gives particular attention to the need for: equitable compensation for any harms sustained, access to information about potential harms, and ability to participate freely in decision making processes (Cotton 2017). Cotton’s (2017) articulation of an ethical framework by which to evaluate the fairness and appropriateness of policy on shale gas development is a major step in the right direction. Evensen (2015, 2016a) has asserted that an explicit account of the circumstances under which development would or would not be ethically justified is perhaps the biggest gap in the policy discourse and debates on this issue. Indeed, there have been numerous public claims about the ethicality of ‘fracking’ (shale gas development), but until Cotton’s (2017) foray into this area, the academic literature on the topic was quite limited (Evensen 2016a). A few prior articles had highlighted distributive justice issues related to fracking (Cotton 2013, Evensen 2015, Fry et al. 2015, Hardy and Kelsey 2015, Hays and de Melo-Martin 2014, Hotaling 2013, Malin 2014, Measham et al. 2016, Willow and Wylie 2014), procedural justice considerations (Cotton 2013, de Wit 2011, Evensen 2015, Finkel et al. 2013, Fry et al. 2015), and/or the role of precautionary thinking in ethical approaches to evaluating unconventional gas development (de Melo-Martin et al. 2015, Finkel and Hays 2013, Law et al. 2014). Cotton’s (2016) article draws together the range of distributive and procedural justice considerations; as such, it is one of the most important social scientific or humanistic articles written to date on this much-debated form of energy development. It offers a solid point of departure for ethical thought on shale gas policy; nevertheless, there is more work to be done. Following Cotton’s analysis, aspects of the PPFPE arise as problematic or require additional clarification, including: the role of compensation in distributive justice, the definition of a ‘community’, the need for information provision, and the best way to ensure procedural justice. Two overarching issues that merit attention in relation to ethical thought on shale gas policy, but that were not addressed by Cotton (2016), are: (1) the role of shale gas development as just one means of energy extraction in a larger energy system – development does not occur in a vacuum – and (2) the role of virtue in determining ethicality of shale gas policies. I speak to these two issues and the four areas of Cotton’s argumentation requiring additional attention below.

The Power of Policy Regimes. Explaining Shale Gas Policy Divergence in Bulgaria and Poland

Shale gas policies vary significantly across Europe, notably in Russia–dependent Central Eastern Europe. Most strikingly, Bulgaria banned shale gas, whereas Poland remains firmly committed to fostering it despite drawbacks. This article uses a policy regime approach to explain the shale gas puzzle. Drawing on a large set of interviews, the piece traces back events leading from shale gas entering the (national) policy scene to its ban (Bulgaria) or the adoption of specific shale gas laws (Poland). It finds that the Polish shale gas policy regime was strong, based on a powerful political narrative and characterized by an institutional process ensuring the buy–in of actors from relevant policy levels and subsystems. In Bulgaria the policy regime was weak, failed to co–opt key stakeholders and was institutionally ill–designed. The findings show how different degrees of policy regime strength translate into diverging policy trajectories in two countries that otherwise operate in similar environments.

The Power of Policy Regimes: Explaining Shale Gas Policy Divergence in Bulgaria and Poland

AbstractShale gas policies vary significantly across Europe, notably in Russia‐dependent Central Eastern Europe. Most strikingly, Bulgaria banned shale gas, whereas Poland remains firmly committed to fostering it despite its drawbacks. This article uses a policy regime approach to explain the shale gas puzzle. Drawing on a large set of interviews, the piece investigates regime strength as the causal factor that explains the adoption of specific shale gas laws (Poland) or a fracking ban (Bulgaria). It finds that the Polish shale gas policy regime was strong, based on a powerful political narrative and characterized by an institutional process ensuring the buy‐in of actors from relevant policy levels and subsystems. In Bulgaria the policy regime was weak, failed to co–opt key stakeholders, and was institutionally ill‐designed. The findings show how different degrees of policy regime strength translate into diverging policy trajectories in two countries that otherwise operate in similar environments.

Fair fracking? Ethics and environmental justice in United Kingdom shale gas policy and planning

ABSTRACTThe exploitation of shale gas resources is a significant issue of environmental justice. Uneven distributions of risks and social impacts to local site communities must be balanced against the economic benefits to gas users and developers; and unequal decision-making powers must be negotiated between local and central governments, communities and fracking site developers. These distributive and procedural elements are addressed in relation to UK policy, planning, regulatory and industry development. I adopt an explicitly normative framework of policy evaluation, addressing a research gap on the ethics of shale gas by operationalising Shrader-Frechette’s Principle of Prima Facie Political Equality. I conclude that UK fracking policy reveals inherent contradictions of environmental justice in relation to the Conservative Government’s localist and planning reform agendas. Early fracking policy protected communities from harm in the wake of seismic risk events, but these were quickly replaced with pro-industry economic stimulation and planning legislation that curtailed community empowerment in fracking decision-making, increased environmental risks to communities, transferred powers from local to central government and created the conditions of distributive injustices in the management of community benefit provisions. I argue that only by “re-localising” the scale of fracking governance can political equality be ensured and the distributive and procedural environmental injustices be ameliorated.

Stakeholder perspectives on shale gas fracking: a Q-method study of environmental discourses

The rapid expansion of shale gas exploration worldwide is a significant source of environmental controversy. Successful shale gas policy-making is dependent upon a clear understanding of the dynamics of competing stakeholder perspectives on these issues, and so methods are needed to delineate the areas of agreement and conflict that emerge. This empirical study, based in the United Kingdom, examines emergent perspectives on a range of environmental, health and socio-economic impacts associated with shale gas fracking using Q-methodology: a combined qualitative–quantitative approach. The analysis reveals three typologies of perspectives amongst key industry, civil society and non-affiliated citizen stakeholders; subsequently contextualised in relation to Dryzek's typology of environmental discourses. These are labelled (A) ‘Don't trust the fossil fuels industry: campaign for renewables’ (mediating between sustainable development and democratic pragmatism discourses), (B) ‘Shale gas is a bridge fuel: economic growth and environmental scepticism’ (mediating between economic rationalism and ecological modernisation discourses) and (C) ‘Take place protective action and legislate in the public interest’ (reflecting a discourse of administrative rationalism). The implications of these competing discourses for nascent shale gas policy in the UK are discussed in light of recent government public consultation on changes to national planning policy.

Information Collection, Access, and Dissemination to Support Evidence‐Based Shale Gas Policies

AbstractTo ensure that unconventional shale gas development (UGD) yields net social benefits, we need to identify the magnitude and distribution of its benefits and costs and develop effective technological, management, and regulatory strategies to minimize potential adverse effects. A major obstacle to achieve these goals is the gaps in the collection, access, and dissemination of information. This paper focuses on information gaps to assess a narrow subset of the potential links between UGD and well‐water contamination, drawing particularly from the experience in Pennsylvania. It suggests strategies for legislators, regulators, industry, and researchers to address these information gaps, while protecting legitimate privacy concerns. The benefits from an improved understanding of the impact of this industry and resulting innovations to mitigate its impacts justifies the cost of data collection, access, and dissemination.

Shale gas policy in the United Kingdom: An argumentative discourse analysis

Shale gas has become an energy policy priority in the United Kingdom in light of profitable extraction activities in the United States. Since 2012 the Coalition Government has created key economic drivers to encourage shale exploration, whilst growing activism in affected site communities has stirred significant media and academic commentary. This study examines the growing national debate as a matter of discourse, adopting an argumentative discourse analytic approach to assess data collected from stakeholder interviews (n=21) and key policy actor statements quoted in broadsheet newspapers. We explore three dominant “storylines” emerging in relation to shale gas policy: (1) “cleanliness and dirt” concerns the relative framing of the environmental benefits and harms of shale gas; (2) “energy transitions – pathways and diversions” concerns geographic metaphors of transitions to carbon intensive and low-carbon energy systems; and (3) “geographies of environmental justice” concerns divisions of economic benefit distribution, environmental impact and procedural fairness. We find that central government policy rhetoric emphasises economic development, regulatory oversight and distribution of benefits to site communities, whilst minimising discussion of the implications of shale gas for anthropogenic climate change. The role of these discourses in influencing shale gas policy is discussed.

The role of ethics in shale gas policies

The United States has experienced a boom in natural gas production due to recent technological innovations that have enabled natural gas to be produced from unconventional sources, such as shale. There has been much discussion about the costs and benefits of developing shale gas among scientists, policy makers, and the general public. The debate has typically revolved around potential gains in economics, employment, energy independence, and national security as well as potential harms to the environment, the climate, and public health. In the face of scientific uncertainty, national and international governments must make decisions on how to proceed. So far, the results have been varied, with some governments banning the process, others enacting moratoria until it is better understood, and others explicitly sanctioning shale gas development. These policies reflect legislature's preferences to avoid false negative errors or false positive ones. Here we argue that policy makers have a prima facie duty to minimize false negatives based on three considerations: (1) protection from serious harm generally takes precedence over the enhancement of welfare; (2) minimizing false negatives in this case is more respectful to people's autonomy; and (3) alternative solutions exist that may provide many of the same benefits while minimizing many of the harms.

Responsible Shale Gas Production: Moral Outrage vs. Cool Analysis

The relatively sudden boom in shale gas production in the United States using hydraulic fracturing has provoked increasingly intense political conflict. The debate over fracking and shale gas production has become polarized very quickly, in part because of the size of the economic and environmental stakes. This polarized debate fits a familiar template in American environmental law, pitting “cool analysis” against “moral outrage.” Opponents of fracking have generally framed their arguments in moral or ethical terms, while systematic research is beginning to build a more careful and nuanced understanding of the risks associated with shale gas production (though the record is far from complete). All of which makes the question of how to produce shale gas “responsibly” – corporate social responsibility being the focus of this symposium – very difficult to answer. This essay argues that: (i) because shale gas production entails difficult to measure and unevenly distributed costs and benefits, there is no clear responsible (read: ethically preferable) set of limitations that we ought to impose on shale gas production; and (ii) moral outrage is obscuring (or influencing perceptions of) empirical facts in the shale gas policy debate. More specifically, well-established behavioral heuristics – particularly, confirmation biases and the cultural cognition of risk – are impeding the development of a common understanding of the empirical facts necessary to guide policymaking. Recognizing this, policymakers must resist political pressures and work that much harder to ground their decisions in empirically-demonstrated facts – namely, those produced by sources that are less susceptible to these heuristics and biases. Thus, information generated by rigorous, empirical analyses performed by academic or government sources ought to be credited over anecdotes or studies associated with industry or NGOs that have staked out a clear pro or con position in the fracking debate. Indeed, responsible fracking decisions ought to consider all of the consequences of permitting, regulating or banning shale gas production, including the relative risks of shale gas production compared with the relevant energy alternatives.