Shale Gas Development and Community Distress: Evidence from England

This research examines psychosocial stress associated with shale gas development through the narratives of residents and the Revised Impact of Event Scale (IES-R). We carried out our research in three of England’s communities impacted by shale gas development. To gather data, we conducted qualitative interviews and engaged in participant observation in all three communities and conducted a quantitative survey of residents. From our qualitative interviews it was apparent that the residents we spoke with experienced significant levels of stress associated with shale gas development in each community. Importantly, residents reported that stress was not only a reaction to development, but a consequence of interacting with industry and decision makers. Our quantitative findings suggest that a significant portion of residents 14.1 living near the shale gas sites reported high levels of stress (i.e., scoring 24 or more points) even while the mean IES-R score of residents living around the site is relatively low (i.e., 9.6; 95 CI 7.5–11.7). We conclude that the experiences, of the three English communities, reported in the qualitative interviews and quantitative survey are consistent with the reports of stress in the United States for those residents who live in shale gas communities. We therefore suggest that psychosocial stress is an important negative externality, which needs to be taken seriously by local planning officers and local planning committees when considering exploration and development permits for shale gas

Entrepreneurship, incongruence and affect: drawing insights from a Swedish anti-racist organisation

In recent years, entrepreneurship has been reconceptualised as social change. Understood as such, entrepreneurship can be viewed to disrupt and disturb the social order. We argue in this paper that Foucault’s notion of heterotopia and Lacan’s concepts of the real and anxiety help us to conceptualize the disturbing aspect of entrepreneurship as social change, and understand why the latter may encounter social resistance. Our contribution to critical entrepreneurship literature is to first emphasise that entrepreneurship instigates social change by introducing incongruence, and second, to highlight that this process can be affective: it can create anxiety. The paper uses an illustrative historical case-example of a Swedish anti-racist commercial magazine (Gringo) to elucidate these points. We conclude by pointing out that anxiety may be necessary for the provocation of social transformation

The democratic interface: technology, political organization, and diverging patterns of electoral representation

Democracies are experiencing historic disruptions affecting how people engage with core institutions such as the press, civil society organizations, parties, and elections. These processes of citizen interaction with institutions operate as a democratic interface shaping self-government and the quality of public life. The electoral dimension of the interface is important, as its operation can affect all others. This analysis explores a growing left-right imbalance in the electoral connection between citizens, parties, elections, and government. This imbalance is due, in part, to divergent left-right preferences for political engagement, organization, and communication. Support on the right for clearer social rules and simpler moral, racial and nationalist agendas are compatible with hierarchical, leader-centered party organizations that compete more effectively in elections. Parties on the left currently face greater challenges engaging citizens due to the popular meta-ideology of diversity and inclusiveness and demands for direct or deliberative democracy. What we term connective parties are developing technologies to perform core organizational functions, and some have achieved electoral success. However, when connective parties on the left try to develop shared authority processes, online and offline, they face significant challenges competing with more conventionally organized parties on the right

Social Impacts of Natural Gas Exploration in England, 2018-2020

The aim of this data collection was to identify, record and describe the social impacts of natural gas exploration. Interviews were conducted across 5 different locations in England and involved individuals who lived, worked and protested in the vicinity of gas sites, including: local residents, farmers, business owners, police officers, protesters and local officials. They were asked to describe their experiences with natural gas exploration and extraction that was being planned or carried out in their locality. The research concerned both conventional and unconventional (involving hydraulic fracturing or other stimulation methods) gas developments.The increased demand for natural gas and concerns about national energy security have sparked a renewed interest in unconventional forms of energy development. Hydraulic fracturing is one popular form of unconventional gas development that is being pursued within the UK. As former Prime Minister David Cameron suggests, 'We're going all out for shale. It is important for our country, it could bring 74,000 jobs, over £3billion in investment, give us cheaper energy for the future, and increase our energy security. I want us to get on board.' While hydraulic fracturing may produce national social and economic benefits by reducing the price of energy and increasing national security it may also create negative outcomes in those communities where extraction takes place. It is within this context that the proposed research examines the social, economic and environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing. This research hypothesises that hydraulic fracturing can have two different kinds of impacts on a community. The first type of impact may arise from the technical process of hydraulic fracturing. The second type of impact may result from social interpretations of natural gas extraction. The proposed research seeks to distinguish between these two different types of impacts by undertaking the first UK study that makes systematic comparisons between hydraulic fracturing communities and conventional gas extraction communities. It is within these vital comparisons that the proposed study asks four important questions. First, how do residents and other local stakeholders (e.g., business owners, natural gas employees, law enforcement, protesters and community leaders) describe their experiences with gas extraction and do their experiences vary according to their race, ethnicity, gender and age and/or the type of natural gas development (i.e., conventional vs. unconventional)? Second, how do race, ethnicity, gender and age shape resident and other local stakeholder mobilisation and anti-mobilisation efforts? Third, what social, economic and environmental changes are reported to occur as a direct result of natural gas development? Importantly, how do these changes vary according to the type of development (i.e., conventional vs. unconventional)? Fourth, can life cycle assessment be a useful tool for informing national and local debates about hydraulic fracturing? Importantly, is there significant variation between conventional and unconventional gas developments when it comes to life cycle assessment? We answer these questions by achieving four objectives. Specifically, we (1) create a comprehensive literature review of the social and economic impacts of hydraulic fracturing on communities; (2) produce an ethnographic analysis of residents and other local stakeholders in hydraulic fracturing and conventional extraction communities; (3) generate a quantitative assessment of residents' perspectives about the social and economic impacts of living near hydraulic fracturing and conventional extraction sites, and; (4) undertake and report the findings of a life cycle assessment that compares hydraulic fracturing to conventional extraction. Completion of these objectives will provide relevant information to communities, statutory organisations, and policy-makers in order to stimulate a more informed and thoughtful public conversation about the benefits and burdens of hydraulic fracturing.</p

A comparison of uranium recovery from low-grade ore by bioleaching and acid leaching

The objective of this work was to compare the bioleaching with the acid leaching of uranium under similar process conditions within 65 days. The low-grade uranium ore used in the experiments was collected from Radoniow’s ‘small’ dump, Poland. Bioleaching and acid leaching studies were carried out in identical columns. The isolated bacterial consortium from the Radoniow’s mine was used for the bioleaching process. A solution of sulphuric acid and H2O2 as oxidizing agent was used for the acid leaching. The extraction of uranium under acid leaching conditions reached maximum of 64±13 % w/w after 31 days. The bioleaching of uranium achieved a maximum extraction of 75±15 % w/w after 55 days. In this study an attempt was made to demonstrate the relationship between the shrinking-core model and the experimental data by plotting the fractional conversion of uranium against time