Energy Impacts

A Multidisciplinary Exploration of North American Energy Development

Jeffrey B. Jacquet, Julia H. Haggerty, Gene L. Theodori, Jeffrey B. Jacquet, Julia H. Haggerty, Gene L. Theodori

• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781646420278
• Topic: Sciences biologiques
• Subtopic: Science générale

Society and Natural Resources Book Series, copublished with the Society and Natural Resources PressDevelopment of various energy sources continues across North America and around the world, raising questions about social and economic consequences for the places and communities where these activities occur. Energy Impacts brings together important new research on site-level social, economic, and behavioral impacts from large-scale energy development. Featuring conceptual and empirical multidisciplinary research from leading social scientists, the volume collects a broad range of perspectives to understand North America's current energy uses and future energy needs.Twelve chapters from respected scholars in a variety of disciplines present new ways to consider and analyze energy impact research. Focused on varied energy topics, geographies, and disciplines, each chapter includes a policy brief that summarizes the work and provides "key takeaways" to apply the findings to policy and public discourse.
Meaningful public engagement is critical in limiting the negative implications of energy development, and understanding the social influences on and of energy systems is a cornerstone of addressing the climate crisis. As such, Energy Impacts is a significant work for students, scholars, and professionals working in sociology, education, geography, environmental studies, and public health.
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1528422. Publication is also supported, in part, by Montana State University.Contributors:
Ali Adil, Lisa Bailey-Davis, Nancy Bowen-Elizey, Morey Burnham, Weston Eaton, Heather Feldhaus, Felix Fernando, Emily Grubert, C. Clare Hinrichs, John Hintz, Richard Hirsh, Season Hoard, Tamara Laninga, Eric Larson, Achla Marathe, Natalie Martinkus, Seven Mattes, Ronald Meyers, Patrick Miller, Ethan Minier, Myra Moss, Jacob Mowery, Thomas Murphy, Sevda Ozturk Sari, John Parkins, Christopher Podeschi, Nathan Ratledge, Sanne Rijkhoff, Kelli Roemer, Todd Schenk, Anju Seth, Kate Sherren, Jisoo Sim, Marc Stern, Jessica Ulrich-Schad, Cameron Whitley, Laura Zachary

Section Two

Methodological Approaches

5

Analysis of Research Methods Examining Shale Oil and Gas Development

Felix N. Fernando, Jessica D. Ulrich-Schad, and Eric C. Larson

DOI: 10.5876/9781646420278.c005

Introduction

Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling (colloquially referred to as fracking) is arguably the most significant and contentious technological advancement in the nonrenewable energy industry during the last decade. The surge in shale oil and gas development in the United States, caused in part, by these technological advances, dissipated with the decline in prices since mid-2015. However, price recovery and current favorable political and regulatory outlook are instigating a resurgence in the shale oil and gas industry. Shale plays such as the Bakken, Haynesville, and Permian Basin experienced an increase in drilling activity in 2017. Therefore, future drilling and development activity can be expected to follow a miniboom/minibust cycle (Jacquet and Kay 2014) based on favorable market; technological, political, and pertinent regulatory dynamics such as technological advancements in fracking processes; price stability over breakeven levels; improved collection infrastructure; and supportive regulatory regimes. As the impacted communities and stakeholders evolve and adapt to the minibooms and busts of the shale oil and gas industry, this cyclical industrial progression creates an intriguing and challenging landscape for social science research.

This chapter aims to elucidate the unique challenges, constraints, and opportunities associated with conducting social science research in the context of shale oil and gas development. Specifically, we (a) provide an in-depth review of quantitative and qualitative social science research focusing on issues pertaining to fracking, (b) outline the potential challenges and implications for researchers, and (c) highlight innovative ways the challenges are being addressed by social science scholars or could be addressed in future research. This chapter does not, however, describe the approaches used for transcribing, coding, preparing and cleaning, or analyzing data, nor does it address steps to ensure reliability and validity during data compilation and analysis. It must be noted that this chapter excludes a discussion of a stream of research that examines issues of income and natural resource curse using methods such as geospatial analysis, economic choice experiments, and econometric analysis.

The arguments and ideas presented and discussed in this chapter are based on (1) firsthand research experiences of the authors; (2) systematic review of sixty-eight original social science research articles published from 2005 to 2017 in the United States, Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom; and (3) discussions with other prominent researchers in the field. The articles examined in the systematic review were identified by running searches using hydraulic fracturing, fracking, shale oil and gas, and other similar terms on multiple academic platforms such as ProQuest, EBSCOhost, JSTOR, and ScienceDirect. The articles were analyzed and organized by the research methods used.

This chapter is organized into three sections. The first section describes implications and considerations for conducting social science research in communities impacted by rapid shale oil and gas development and suggestions for longitudinal research. Integrating firsthand experiences with literature, the second and third sections collate different qualitative and quantitative methodological approaches, while outlining ways to address challenges in impacted community contexts.

Research Considerations and Implications during Miniboom/Minibust Cycles

Some of the major shale plays in the United States such as the Bakken and the Marcellus are located in areas that are considered largely rural and/or agricultural, while other shale plays such as the Barnett are located in largely urban areas. In addition, shale plays and the associated geographic footprint span multiple states. For example, development of the Bakken Shale directly impacts North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota, and some parts of Canada, while development of the Marcellus Shale directly impacts Pennsylvania, West Virginia, northeastern Ohio, and upstate New York. The vast geographic footprint, the urban/rural context, and the historical legacy of natural resource extraction require careful positioning and framing of the research context within which the social impacts and perceptions of stakeholders are examined and studied. In addition, the socially differential impacts, spatially differential impacts, and regionally differential impacts, based on the scale of research focus and analysis, present a complicated research landscape that should be considered and addressed through careful research design and methodology (Schafft, Brasier, and Hesse 2017).

At a regional level, the rapid workforce influx during the boom phase generates a swift increase in demand for community services and amenities. Urban areas that have the community infrastructure and capacity to absorb the demands of the workforce act as hubs from which the workers travel to drilling sites, activating the hub-and-spoke model (Brasier and Filteau 2015). Comparatively, rural communities in shale plays with no urban hubs experience significant strains irrespective of size, as the industry scrambles to se...