| With the high-speed development and significant progress in our country’s economy and society, there is a growing demand for energy and consumption of conventional oil and gas resources intensifying the contradiction between energy supply and energy demand in China. Simultaneously, the issue of climate change and environmental pressure forces Chinese to improve the energy structure and develop clean energy vigorously. It is improving the ratio of natural gas,a relatively clean energy, in primary energy consumption that would be a realistic and feasible way to improve the energy structure and reduce carbon emissions. On the one hand, unconventional gas such as shale gas resource in our country is abundant, which provides a resource basis for promoting the development and utilization of shale gas resources. On the other hand, owing to hydraulic fracture and horizontal well drilling technology, USA has successfully made a breakthrough in commercializing the exploitation of shale gas, meanwhile inspiring China’s initiative of exploiting shale gas. Nevertheless, the resource property and social property determine its various impacts on the economy and society when exploited on a large scale. Therefore, a scientific evaluation of the impacts of mineral resource exploitation on the economy, society and environment will be an important base to ensure a sustainable exploitation. Shale gas, an unconventional gas resource, has no exception as well.Years of technology research and development, as well as production practice, in the United States and Canada eventually made large-scale exploitation and utilization feasible in this century, leading shale gas and its industry to develop rapidly. Meanwhile, its economic and social benefits and environmental impact also generate with the advancement of development and utilization of shale gas resources. Based on the experience in America, large-scale development of shale gas resource mainly produces huge energy safety and economic benefit but few environmental benefit. As for China where oil and gas resources are in short supply and its demand grow rapidly, propelling its exploitation and utilization provides a practical and feasible approach to meet the supply and demand of energy resources. Therefore, since 2008, nations and local governments have promulgated a package of policies and measures to stimulate the work of exploitation and development. Along with progress of its work’s advancement, realizing large-scale development and utilization is for the foreseeable future. Besides, to assess the impacts on social economy and environment from its large-scale development and utilization is an important issue to be settled urgently. Combining the experience of its development and utilization in the United States, this paper gives a brief outline on the attribute of shale gas resources, and evaluates the impact on exploitation and utilization of shale gas from three dimensions:energy security, economy and environment. Based on the result of quantitative and qualitative evaluation, it also makes suggestion on the adjustment of industrial policy of shale gas resources in our country, especially subsidy policy.The theis is structured as follows:The first chapter is introduction. Firstly, it describes the background and significance of the topic of this thesis on several aspects, such as energy supply and demand structure, current situation of carbon emissions and shale gas resources potential in China. It also discusses the significance of impact assessment for shale gas exploitation and utilization from the perspective of shale gas industry development and the energy revolution advancement. And then this paper reviews relevant documents about shale gas resources at the present stage systematically. The study found that researches about shale gas is still at its preliminary stage, which focuses on introduction of shale gas, the present situation of shale gas development around the world, the summary of experience of America, the challenge for domestic development of shale gas and the qualitative analysis of the benefit. Thus, it reveals that the research about short-term and long-term social, economic and environmental impact of its exploitation and utilization lags behind its development practices. Based on this problem for research, the research content, scheme and concept, even possible innovations of this paper are presented. Finally, the last part briefly summarizes the main body content.The second chapter focus on the theories of whole theies. This chapter starts from the connotation of efficiency and try to conclude the purpose and dimension of performance evaluation based on the general theory of benefit assessment, through the analysis of the economic attribute and characteristics of shale gas resources, build a theoretical analysis framework paper from the dimensions of economy, energy security and environment, and then discuss the three relationships among the dimensions and policy implications.The third chapter is about the attribute of shale gas, the economic and social impacts of its development and utilization. The exploitation and utilization of shale gas can generate several new industries, so that it will have several aspects of influence to a country or area’s economic development. Different from the regulation of economic and social development in developing and utilizing general mineral resources, the impact on economical society from the development and utilization of shale gas has its particularity. Thus, mainly from the both aspects of natural attribute and social attribute of shale gas, combined the historical process in the United States, this chapter teases out the economic and social impacts of its development and utilization. Through summing the experience in America, this chapter carries on the analysis about the impact on exploitation and utilization of shale gas from three dimensions:energy security, economic benefit and environmental risk.The fourth chapter is about the necessity and progress for the development of shale gas. At the beginning, this chapter analyzes the future demand of natural gas in China through global natural gas storage variation, the present situation of supply and demand, the current flow in the global gas market, and natural gas imports in China. The analysis finds that global consumption structure of fossil energy is undergoing a fundamental change that transforms petroleum into natural gas under the pressure of climate change. In addition, the liquidity of natural gas is increasing gradually on a global scale, especially in China, where the imports of pipeline gas and liquefied gas has been increasing in recent years. And it even causes that Shale gas external dependence is getting higher. In consequence, large-scale development and utilization of shale gas will be a realistic and feasible approach for the sake of guarantee of domestic natural gas supply. Relying on the above points, the chapter makes the induction about the reserve and distribution of shale gas, the situation of exploration and development to comb, which also lays foundation of analyzing economic and social impact exerting on development and utilization of shale gas.The fifth chapter is about the analysis of energy security benefit of the development and utilization of shale gas. To begin with, it summarizes the relevant theories and their achievements of energy security currently. The recent energy security is divided into two main types-energy supply security and energy use security. Nevertheless, energy use security is mainly subject to the legal category of the environmental protection, the paper will mostly define energy security as energy supply security. Secondly, according to the method of energy security evaluation, it calculates SWI index and HHI index of energy security in China. Meanwhile, based on diversity index of energy security evaluation, it builds the model of energy security evaluation and analyzes the current situation of energy supply security from 2006 to 2012, which finds that energy supply security in our country has been falling sharply since 2008.Finally, based on the law of the development of natural gas and the Development Program of Shale Gas (2011-2015)in China, the prospect of shale gas is predicted on different scenarios in this chapter. And it also analyzes the effect on meeting the gas supply and guaranteeing the energy security on different scenarios.The sixth chapter is about the analysis of benefit of the development and utilization of shale gas, which is also the main purpose in this chapter. The economic benefit of its development and utilization is defined as direct economic benefit and industrial efficiency. As for direct economic benefit, energy productivity and co-integration analysis method are used to estimate the contribution to gross domestic product, which the shale gas in our country will make. The estimation results indicate that the direct economic benefit of shale gas is considerable. Limited to data factors, the part of industrial efficiency qualitatively analyzes the possible prospect through various parts in industry chain of shale gas.The seventh chapter is about environmental impact analysis of the exploitation and utilization of shale gas, which describes the environmental benefit and risk of shale gas. The environmental benefit of shale gas lies in low pollutants discharge during its combustion period; therefore, this chapter calculates possible emissions reduction of shale gas on the basis of the former estimation of its production. As for the environmental risk, according to American experience, the environmental risk of its exploitation and utilization lies in the pollution of water resource and the emissions of Greenhouse. Based on this, it firstly uses the ArcGIS analysis to build index system including surface water production pressure and groundwater pollution risk at the provincial level domain to analyze the water resource risk of its development. Besides, it also estimates overall water consumption of all provinces in the present fracturing level. Through comparative analysis of the combustion process and the emission of three kinds of fossil energy, it reveals that shale gas, as a sort of unconventional gas, possesses the potential of greater environmental protection and lower emissions, however, the premises of guaranteeing its potential of environmental protection is to control methane emissions in the process of its exploitation and utilization. Based on the research from relevant scholars and the method of literature metrology, this chapter estimates methane emissions during life cycle processes of its exploitation and utilization. The estimation indicates that if the methane emission cannot be controlled effectively during the whole process, whether shale gas can be characterize as a clean and environment friendly energy source remains to be further discussed.The eighth chapter is policy recommendations of development and utilization of shale gas. At first, based on the former research and discussion, the policy objective of the development and utilization of shale gas is put forward, that is to promote its commercial utilizations under the premise of the environmental protection. Summarizing the policy of shale gas development in America, the chapter indicates that large-scale development of shale gas in America relies on high-intensity and persistent subsidy from government. In recognition of this fact, the policy analysis to promote shale gas exploitation and utilization emphasizes on subsidies and preferential tax policy. However, different ways of subsidy may generate different effect. Hence, the subsidy efficiency generated from implementing system-dynamic methods to simulate various subsidy ways, including technical subsidy, tax subsidy and direct subsidy, demonstrates that the first step we need to take is keeping direct subsidy under the current subsidy-circumstance. The reason for that lies on the simulation outcomes that direct subsidy has deterministic effect on elementary development period of shale gas. For the second move, we should focus on the technical subsidy for its high efficiency, and, as to the subsidy ratio, we should partially cut the ratio for exploiting companies. As environmental costs of systematic dynamic model is not a complete replacement for environmental regulation and is lack of feasibility at the policy implementation level, using the new institutional economics theory to establish rules and solutions aiming at the issues about consumption of water resource and about emissions of greenhouse gas, both originated from shale gas exploiting, is on urge.The nineth chapter is the conclusion and prospect, including the summary of this thesis and the follow-up study on the prospects. It can be concluded from the researches that the resource attribute and social attribute of shale gas determine energy security, economic and environmental impacts of its exploitation and utilization. Viewed from the economical contribution of energy security and industry development, large-scale development of shale gas resource is supposed to be vigorously promoted, whereas how to reduce the potential risk of water pollution and the emission rate of carbon can still be improved. Therefore, the relevant policy of shale gas focuses on how to allowance to quickly realize mass production under the premise of controlling environmental risks. Carrying on the forecast to the following research, relative benefits of economy, society and environment, which may generate in the process of energy structure adjustment because of mass production of shale gas, should be taken into account.The highlights of innovations in this thesis are:(1) Based on energy security evaluation index and model, constructed an specific energy security model with the consideration that what kind of role the shale gas will be to fit the Chinese natural gas demands in the future;(2) According to the supply capacity of different scenarios of shale gas resources, using energy productivity and cointegration model to estimate the economic benefits of shale gas development and utilization in China;(3) For the problem of water resources depletion in shale gas development and utilization, using ArcGIS techniques to explore the pressure of freshwater resources consumption and the risk of groundwater contamination, these analysis may help policy makers to manage water resource;(4) American experience shows that subsidies is the most important policy to promote Chinese shale gas industry, however different type of subsidies make different results, So a system dynamics simulation method is used to choose the best way of subsidies.
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