“Earth, Air, Water, Oil: Regulating Fracking in the Monterey Shale with Health and Environment in Mind,” explores how hydraulic fracturing regulation in California’s oil-rich Monterey Shale will impact regional public health, including groundwater and air quality. This is achieved through a combination of case study and policy analysis on both the state and national level.

This thesis looks at the current fracking debate on a national scale, before focusing specifically on how this debate is playing out in the landscape of Central Arkansas. Focusing on the lack of national regulation, the unique array of state regulations that have popped up are assessed in their effectiveness on the ground through speaking with residents of the area. The demographics of these residents are analyzed within an assessment of environmental injustice vulnerability. This ethnographic approach also compares the de jure v. de facto outcomes of these regulations through the narratives of residents working with organizations across the political spectrum, and specifically seeks to gauge their own personal stories and experiences with regulators and the fracking industry. Other key actors are identified. This thesis concludes that agency capture is a reality for these residents, and their perceived powerlessness drastically increases the power of the gas companies that monopolize the political agenda in the region.

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Den technologischen Hintergrund für diese Arbeit liefert die bei der Erschließung tiefer Lagerstätten (Erdgas, Erdöl, Erdwärme) eingesetzte Stimulationstechnik des Hydraulic Fracturing. Bei dieser Technik werden mittels hydraulischem Druck Risse im Lagerstättengestein erzeugt, die durch Einspülen von Feststoffkörnern (Proppants) offengehalten werden sollen. Der inhaltliche Schwerpunkt liegt auf der theoretischen und experimentellen Untersuchung der Einbettung von Proppants in das Lagerstättengestein unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Einflusses auf die hydraulische Leitfähigkeit eines durch Proppants gestützten Risses. Thematisch teilt sich die Arbeit in die beiden Schwerpunkte: (1) Berechnung der Proppant-Einbettung auf der Grundlage kontaktmechanischer Ansätze und (2) experimentelle Untersuchungen an realen Proppant-Schüttungen. Zur mathematischen Formulierung der Proppant-Einbettung wurde die in der Werkstofftechnik entwickelte Theorie des mechanischen Verhaltens rauer Oberflächen unter Lasteintrag (Kontaktmechanik) mit der ebenfalls aus der Werkstofftechnik bekannten Messung und Interpretation der Oberflächenhärte nach Meyer gekoppelt. Diese neuartige Formulierung ermöglicht es, die Einbettung von Proppants in Abhängigkeit der Materialeigenschaften der Formation, des Spannungszustandes, der Korngrößenverteilung und der Proppants-Konzentration zu berechnen. Zur Prognose des Erfolges einer Stimulation wurde ein 2D-numerischer Algorithmus (MATLAB®) entwickelt, der den Gesamtprozess der Einbettung, der Durchlässigkeitsentwicklung und deren Folgen für die Produktivität der Sonden widerspiegelt. Zur Verifizierung des Berechnungsalgorithmus wurde die Einbettung realer Proppant-Schüttungen in Lagerstättengesteinen (Tonschiefer, Shale) untersucht. Hierfür wurde in einer dafür konzipierten Flutzelle ein durch Proppants gestützter Riss nachgebildet, belastet und durchströmt. Ziel der Versuche war dabei zu messen, welchen Einfluss ein Spannungsanstieg auf die Einbettung und damit auf die hydraulische Leitfähigkeit hat. Diese Versuche wurden an zwei verschiedenen Shale-Gesteinen mit zwei verschiedenen Proppant-Konzentrationen durchgeführt. Zusätzlich zu den hydraulischen Experimenten wurden mechanische Untersuchungen (Härtemessungen) ausgeführt und nach der Meyer-Analyse der Werkstofftechnik interpretiert. Ein besonderer Vorteil dieser Auswertungsmethode liegt in ihrer durch Dimensionsanalyse erzielten Übertragbarkeit der Ergebnisse von Werkstoffen auf Gesteine. Der Vergleich von gemessenen und berechneten Einbettungen und hydraulischen Leitfähigkeiten ergab eine zufriedenstellende Übereinstimmung und erlaubt es festzustellen, dass mit der neuen Formulierung die planerische Voraussage von Frac-Stimulation möglich ist, wobei alleine die relativ einfachen laborativen Messverfahren zur Härtemessung (Gestein) und zur Korngrößenanalyse (Proppant) erforderlich sind.

O fraturamento hidráulico é uma das técnicas de estimulação mais utilizadas pela indústria petrolífera. Esta técnica permite o aumento de produtividade de poços com baixo custo. Essa técnica consiste em induzir a propagação de fissuras nas rochas por meio de uma pressão externa. Assim, modelos para a simulação da propagação de fissuras em tais condições tornam-se de grande importância. O presente trabalho apresenta uma contribuição ao estudo da propagação de fissuras durante o fraturamento hidráulico. Um modelo numérico baseado no Método dos Elementos Finitos será apresentado. Teorias da mecânica da fratura elástico linear são aplicadas e a propagação de fissuras durante o faturamento hidráulico é modelada, tendo como processador das análises a ferramenta numérica FRANC 2D. Os resultados obtidos pelo modelo numérico são comparados com respostas apresentadas na literatura. Boa concordância é observada entre os resultados. Em especial, para os valores da pressão de quebra e o raio de reorientação. / Fracking is one of the most used stimulation techniques by the oil and gas industry. This technique allows the increase of productivity of wells with low cost. Consists in inducing the propagation of cracks in the rocks by means of an external pressure. Thus, models for simulating the propagation of cracks in such conditions become of great importance. This work presents a contribution to the study of the propagation of cracks during the fracking. A numerical model based on the Finite Element Method will be presented. Theories of linear elastic fracture mechanics are applied and the propagation of cracks during hydraulic billing is modeled, with the FRANC 2D numerical tool as the analysis processor. The results obtained by the numerical model are compared with answers presented in the literature. Good agreement is observed among the results. In particular, for the values of the breakdown pressure and the reorientation radius.

EIA's contribution to increased environmental awareness is a posited means by which EIA's contribution to a substantive level of environmental protection can be measured. However, little research has been done to evaluate and properly contextualise this increased environmental awareness in members of the public who participate in EIA and its associated processes of public participation. Utilising a Foucauldian understanding of power and governmentality, this research has shown how this process of becoming environmentally aware takes place within a broader application of governmental power and it is within this context which the success (or otherwise) of steering towards a greater environmental awareness must be evaluated. The biopolitical intentions EIA has for managing environmental life in general draws strict boundaries of expertise and authority in governing the environment, and as products of this formation of governmental power the public become subjects of expert direction. In opposition to this, the public produced a rural environment and local community as defined and governed by forms of experiential knowledge, which although pertaining to a truth-oriented mentality of rule, exerted a similar biopolitical control over the environment and immutable form of authority and expertise within it. It is contended that for EIA to penetrate bounded environments and disrupt their totalising environmentalities, the tool must extend the meaning of uncertainty to explicitly recognise the conflict that exists between actors and their respective environments. In this way, EIA can contribute to a form of self-reflexive and -critical environmental citizenship deemed necessary for a thorough investigation into the political dimensions of the environment and its associated substantive measures of enhancement and protection. Employing a realist governmentality approach to the case-study of the 2016 public inquiry in shale energy proposals in Lancashire, this research generated discourse analyses of key policy documents and public contributions to the inquiry in addition to a 'lived experience' of the inquiry as a participatory space through participant observation. The key findings were that at the policy level, the participating member of the public is produced as both a trustee and an expert, heightening the potential for conflict. Further to this, the experiences of the public inquiry added to this potential by seeking to impose on the participant an individualised, silent identity which was directly contradicted by the public during 'non-technical' sessions who sought to participate actively and collectively. Within their contributions the public produced further internal conflicts, with aspects of this discourse relying on existing institutionalised forms of knowledge and expertise to respond to environmental problems, while in others asserting that localised and personal experiences were necessary. EIA as a technique of government can have a leading role in defining the environment in both a physical, surrounding sense and as a mentality. To do so and challenge essentialised and concrete ideas regarding the environment avoiding the acts of exclusion that underpin them becoming normalised the thesis builds on the analysis to make a proposition for a more effective agonistic EIA process.

An exercise in applied Christian ecotheology, this thesis focuses on a community of Lutheran church bodies (ELCA) in North Central Pennsylvania as they grappled with natural gas hydraulic fracturing in the summer of 2012. In the paper, I employ a combination of theological, environmental, historical, and ethnographic research methodologies to ground my analysis of how this synod of Lutherans to date has approached the fracking boom. My primary research question is: How might the Upper Susquehanna Synod of the ELCA--as a representative body of 131 Lutheran churches that are steeped in tradition--use its history, community involvement, theology, and church structure to address an ecological quandary like fracking? I answer this question in four sections, with each chapter focusing on a different thematic sub-question. Though I borrow techniques from the social sciences, I have written this thesis as a narrative, in order to draw the reader into this fascinating community. Instead of separating my literature review from my ethnographic data, I blend the two together in each chapter, weaving together quotes from synod members with secondary source material. Embedded throughout the report are also maps that I have produced using a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technique to give the story a spatial dimension. Additionally, I use photographs of the synod counties to enhance the reader’s understanding of the region’s ecological and cultural landscapes.