abstract: 'A fundamental societal concern in energy system transitions is the

  distribution of benefits and costs across populations. A recent

  transition, the US shale gas boom, has dramatically altered the domestic

  energy outlook and global markets; however, the social equity

  implications have not been meaningfully assessed and accounted for in

  public and private decision making. In this study, we develop and

  demonstrate a systematic approach to quantify the multi-dimensional

  equity state of an energy system, with a focus on the shale gas boom in

  the Appalachian basin. We tailor variants of standard equity metrics as

  well as develop new empirical and analytical methods and metrics to

  assess spatial, temporal, income, and racial equity as it relates to air

  quality, climate change, and labor market impacts across the natural gas

  supply chain. We find moderate to high spatial inequities with respect

  to the distribution of production (Gini coefficient (y) = 0.93),

  consumption for electric power generation (77 = 0.68), commercial,

  industrial, and residential end use (77 = 0.72), job creation (77 =

  0.72), and air pollution-related deaths (77 = 0.77), which are largely

  driven by geographicallyfixed natural gas abundance and demand. Air

  quality impacts are also regressive, such that mortality risk induced by

  natural gas activity generally increases as income decreases; for

  example, mortality risk (m) (in units of premature mortality per 100 000

  people) for the lowest income class (<\$15 000; m = 0.22 in 2016) is

  higher (18\%-31\%) than for the highest income class (>\$150 000; m =

  0.27 in 2016). These risks are higher for white (m = 0.30 in 2016) than

  non-white (m = 0.16 in 2016) populations, which is largely a result of

  the demographics of rural communities within the vicinity of natural gas

  development. With respect to local labor market impacts within producing

  counties, we find marginal declines in income inequality (2.8\% 1.0\%)

  and poverty rates (9.9\% 1.7\%) during the boom, although household

  income increases for the wealthiest and decreases for the poorest. At a

  systems-level, there is an implied air quality-employment tradeoff of 3

  (<1 to 7) job-years created per life-year lost; this tradeoff varies

  spatially (-1100 to 4400 life-years lost minus job-years created),

  wherein the job benefit outweighs the air quality costs in most

  producing counties whereas in all other counties the reverse is true. We

  also observe temporal inequities, with air quality and employment

  impacts following the boom-and-bust cycle, while climate impacts are

  largely borne by future generations. Cross-impact elasticities (c),

  which measure the sensitivity between different types of impacts, reveal

  that employment increases are sensitive to and coupled with increases in

  air and climate impacts (c = 1.1 and c = 1.3, respectively). The metrics

  applied here facilitate the evaluation and design of countervailing

  policies and systems that explicitly account for social inequities

  mediated through energy infrastructure, supply, and demand. For example,

  in future energy system transition, such equity metrics can be used to

  facilitate decisions related to the siting oflow-carbon infrastructure

  such as transmission lines and wind turbines and the phase -out of

  fossil fuel infrastructure, as well as to demonstrate changes in

  distributional tradeoffs such as the decoupling of environmental and

  employment effects.'
affiliation: 'Robinson, AL (Corresponding Author), Carnegie Mellon Univ, Pittsburgh,
  PA 15213 USA.

  Mayfield, Erin N., Princeton Univ, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA.

  Cohon, Jared L.; Muller, Nicholas Z.; Robinson, Allen L., Carnegie Mellon Univ,
  Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA.

  Azevedo, Ines M. L., Stanford Univ, Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA.'
article-number: '124072'
author: Mayfield, Erin N. and Cohon, Jared L. and Muller, Nicholas Z. and Azevedo,
  Ines M. L. and Robinson, Allen L.
author-email: alr@andrew.cmu.edu
author_list:
- family: Mayfield
  given: Erin N.
- family: Cohon
  given: Jared L.
- family: Muller
  given: Nicholas Z.
- family: Azevedo
  given: Ines M. L.
- family: Robinson
  given: Allen L.
da: '2023-09-28'
doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab59cd
files: []
issn: 1748-9326
journal: ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS
keywords: 'energy systems; natural gas; equity; air quality; climate change; labor

  markets'
keywords-plus: 'FOSSIL-FUEL; MARCELLUS; JUSTICE; IMPACTS; EMPLOYMENT; EMISSIONS; INCOME;

  RISKS'
language: English
month: DEC
number: '12'
number-of-cited-references: '39'
orcid-numbers: 'Robinson, Allen L/0000-0002-1819-083X

  Azevedo, José Manuel Neto/0000-0003-2573-1371

  Azevedo, Ines/0000-0002-4755-8656

  Muller, Nicholas/0000-0003-1712-6526

  Mayfield, Erin/0000-0001-9843-8905'
papis_id: 7103e8304d2d393639495496910fe3da
ref: Mayfield2019quantifyingsocial
researcherid-numbers: 'Azevedo, Inês/HNQ-6690-2023

  Robinson, Allen L/M-3046-2014

  Azevedo, José Manuel Neto/C-1504-2010

  '
times-cited: '8'
title: 'Quantifying the social equity state of an energy system: environmental and
  labor market equity of the shale gas boom in Appalachia'
type: Article
unique-id: WOS:000514833200047
usage-count-last-180-days: '2'
usage-count-since-2013: '18'
volume: '14'
web-of-science-categories: Environmental Sciences; Meteorology \& Atmospheric Sciences
year: '2019'