Over the coming decades, it is likely that many places around the United States and around the world will be transformed by new efforts to produce unconventional fossil fuels. Before this development is fully underway, it is important to better evaluate how these technologies are grounded in the character of particular regions. This study sets out to gain a foothold into the ways that new unconventional energy projects and particular places are co-shaping one another. I argue that this objective can be realized by engaging and deepening dialogue between research on socio-technical transitions and research on the community experience and regional economic geographies of resource and industrial development. The overarching research questions here are: How are niche projects and regime dynamics shaped by local context. In turn how are local conditions shaped by energy projects? How do they co-evolve as socio-technical projects? I examine these questions through a case study of shale gas development in northeastern Pennsylvania, which is a new place of energy development that is only recently gaining research attention. A main objective of this dissertation is to address the need to better understand transitions by investigating interactions between shale energy technologies and northeastern Pennsylvania as a region and place. The dissertation first analyzes the history and geographic patterning of the shale mode of producing energy, highlighting the way major shale operators deploy business models and technologies that one local development official characterized as "itinerant factories." This term underscores the pace and scale of an extraction campaign, the impulse to standardize development across places, and its migratory volatility. Over five years, northeastern Pennsylvania experienced this migratory volatility as a drilling boom followed by a significant downturn in activity. The second part of this dissertation analyzes data collected through two rounds of interviews with local participants in northeastern Pennsylvania. Evidence assembled from interviews documents social perspectives on the shale gas regime, place transformation, economic development, and the challenges of governance. The research supports the proposition that making sense of energy transitions locally can be improved by linking research on socio-technical transitions with research on the community experience of energy development.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Geography
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Shale gas
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Hydraulic fracturing
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Shale gas industry--Pennsylvania
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_6126
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (x, 239 p. : ill.)
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Peter Vancura
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore19991600001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
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Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.