Spatial politics of energy conflicts: scale and shape of pipeline and shale gas in Canada

The paper analyzes the spatial politics of the Trans Mountain pipeline, the Coastal GasLink pipeline, and shale gas drilling in New Brunswick. It finds that project proponents typically 'scale up' benefits and 'scale down' impacts, whereas opponents employ the opposite strategy. The authors argue that understanding these spatial strategies can expose power dynamics and biases in legal processes and impact assessments.

• Actors involved in energy conflicts strategically construct space and scale to persuade others, form alliances, and exclude specific people or issues from the conversation.
• There is a divergent strategy regarding scale between project proponents and opponents: proponents tend to emphasize broad benefits while minimizing local impacts, while opponents emphasize local impacts and minimize broad benefits.
• Analyzing spatial politics can uncover power imbalances and biases in impact assessments and legal processes, particularly when the mandates of these processes align with the spatial strategies used by project proponents.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2021). Spatial politics of energy conflicts: scale and shape of pipeline and shale gas in Canada. https://www.sei.org/publications/spatial-politics-energy-conflicts-scale-shape-pipeline-shale-gas-canada/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Spatial politics of energy conflicts: scale and shape of pipeline and shale gas in Canada. 2021. https://www.sei.org/publications/spatial-politics-energy-conflicts-scale-shape-pipeline-shale-gas-canada/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Spatial politics of energy conflicts: scale and shape of pipeline and shale gas in Canada |date=17 May 2021 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/spatial-politics-energy-conflicts-scale-shape-pipeline-shale-gas-canada/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2021spatial, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Spatial politics of energy conflicts: scale and shape of pipeline and shale gas in Canada}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2021}, month = may, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/spatial-politics-energy-conflicts-scale-shape-pipeline-shale-gas-canada/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }