Permitting the Appalachian Chemical Hub

Keywords: legal geography, energy, appalachia
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 4

Abstract

Natural gas has been marketed for at least a decade as a ‘bridge fuel’ for renewable energy transitions and energy security for the US. The Marcellus shale, which spans across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, has become one of the largest producers of natural gas in the past decade. Extraction in the Marcellus shale has been so successful that there has been an overproduction of natural gas. Much of this gas is shipped out of the region, but natural gas liquids, specifically ethane, can be transformed into ethylene, a component of which is then used to make plastics. In this region along the Ohio River, energy companies and developers have proposed a chemical storage and chemical manufacturing corridor to utilize the regionally produced gas. This paper investigates the environmental regulation and permitting processes shaping the Appalachian storage hub and subsequent petrochemical buildout along the Ohio River in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. This paper presents an analysis of the permitting process of new industrial development including the 1000-acre Shell Ethane Cracker facility in PA – scheduled to be operational in 2022 – as well as cancelled permits for development projects in Ohio. Following critical legal geographers and scholars, this research examines the process of petrochemical permitting in the Ohio River Valley and considers how permitting facilitates petrochemical development, whether public participation is possible, and how climate change, renewable energy transition and plastic pollution is conceptualized in the permitting process.