A Comparison Between Shale Gas in China and Unconventional Fuel Development in the United States: Health, Water and Environmental Risks

Arbeitspapier

China is appraised to have the world's largest exploitable reserves of shale gas, although several legal, regulatory, environmental and investment-related issues will likely restrain its scope. China's capacity to successfully face these hurdles and produce commercial shale gas will have a crucial impact on the regional gas market and on China’s energy mix, as Beijing strives to decrease reliance on imported oil and coal, while attempting to meet growing energy demand and maintain a certain level of resource autonomy. The development of the unconventional natural gas extractive industry will also endow China with further negotiating power to obtain more advantageous prices from Russia and future liquefied natural gas (LNG) suppliers. This paper, adopting a comparative perspective, underlines the trends learned from unconventional fuel development in the United States, emphasizing their potential application to the Chinese context in light of recently signed production-sharing contracts between qualified foreign investors and China. The wide range of regulatory and enforcement problems in this matter are accrued by an extremely limited liberalization of gas prices, lack of technological development, and political hurdles curbing the opening of resource extraction to private investors. These issues are exacerbated by concerns related to the risk of water pollution deriving from mismanaged drilling and fracturing, absence of adequate regulation framework and industry standards, entailing consequences on social stability and environmental degradation.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Nota di Lavoro ; No. 95.2013

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines ; Relation of Economics to Social Values ; Market Structure, Pricing, and Design: General ; Externalities ; Criteria for Decision-Making under Risk and Uncertainty ; Trade: General ; Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations ; Trade and Environment ; Taxation and Subsidies: Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies ; Energy, Environmental, Health, and Safety Law ; International Law ; Energy: General ; Energy: Demand and Supply; Prices ; Alternative Energy Sources ; Energy and the Macroeconomy ; Energy: Government Policy ; Trade Policy; International Trade Organizations ; Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance: General ; Gas Utilities; Pipelines; Water Utilities ; Nonrenewable Resources and Conservation: General ; Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development ; Resource Booms ; Renewable Resources and Conservation: Water
• Subject: Shale Gas ; Unconventional Fuel ; China ; U.S.A. ; Health ; Water ; Environmental Risks

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Farah, Paolo D. ; Tremolada, Riccardo
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM)
• (where): Milano
• (when): 2013

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/89609
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:42 AM CET