Elsevier

Applied Energy

Volume 205, 1 November 2017, Pages 769-780
Applied Energy

A dynamic forward-citation full path model for technology monitoring: An empirical study from shale gas industry

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.08.121Get rights and content

Highlights

  • A dynamic model is investigated to monitor the key technical development paths.

  • The status quo of technical innovation of shale gas are quantitatively analyzed.

  • Five potential hotspots are identified using topic modeling.

  • A visualization of technology clusters was carried out by text mining.

  • Simulation, deep fracturing and water treatment are supposed to have good prospect.

Abstract

The utilization of shale gas has become one of the important options to transit into low-carbon economy in the world and its vigorous development relies on successful technology revolution to a great extent. Based on patent data, this paper analyzes the development trends and the status quo of technical innovation of shale gas quantitatively by means of patent maps. A new dynamic model named Forward-Citation Full Path (FCFP) is investigated to identify the key development paths in technology clusters and monitor potential breakthrough technologies on those key paths. Then we employ topic modeling and text mining for patent abstracts to explore the potential promising topics with high innovation activeness in aid of providing specific references for development and foresight of the shale gas technology. The results show that: (1) The patent center of shale gas has been transferring from North American to the Asia-Pacific region and the technological innovation is mainly driven by preferential tax policy and loose environmental regimes. (2) Current hotspots of shale gas technology are production technique including stimulation treatments, environmental protection technology of fracturing fluid and geological prospecting technology. (3) There are five potential topics with high innovation activeness identified by topic modeling and text mining which are synthetic carbon oxide, hydraulic fracturing, fracturing propping agents, horizontal well, and technologies of reservoir exploration and modeling. (4) By means of visualization of technology clusters, it is found that promising technologies are refined simulation technology for shale gas exploration, multi-interval fracturing techniques in horizontal wells with deep pay zones, water treatment and environmental protection technology in shale gas production. (5) The suggested dynamic FCFP model can effectively identify the key development paths and monitor potential breakthrough technology of shale gas.

Introduction

Shale gas provides the nations with a powerful way forward to a lower emission future than traditional fossil fuels and will play an important role in the world energy prospect. The United States has successfully realized the commercial extraction of shale gas and thus effectively improved the energy supply structure, which is attributable to national strategic foresight and considerable development of breakthrough technology, like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing [1]. In the wake of technology advance and cost reduction, it is estimated that the shale gas will account for 30% of the world natural gas output by 2040 [2]. Resource-holding countries except the United States, like China and Canada, are still in the initial stage of development [3]. These countries have successively developed advanced technologies of shale gas suitable for own geological features and promulgated a series of policies to facilitate industrial innovative in order to satisfy the gradually increasing energy demand and reduce carbon emission. China, which is believed to have the largest reserves of shale gas in the world [4], also takes the shale gas as the key research project in energy sector during the 13th Five-Year Plan period.

Based on the status quo of technology, technical monitoring can be adopted to identify the development paths for innovation and foresee the technological development prospect. In order that the countries in the primary period of development have well-grounded policies in technology promotion of shale gas and can draw up efficient and pragmatic national foresight, it is necessary to establish one unified framework to analyze the development status quo of shale gas technology and identify the key development paths of various technology clusters in complicated patent networks of shale gas. Further, it can realize the technical monitoring of potential breakthrough technologies on the key paths and forecast the potential development fields of shale gas so as to provide solid foundation and correct direction for countries in long-term development.

Therefore, this article quantitatively analyzes the development trends and summaries the status quo of technical innovation of shale gas in combination with patent maps. A dynamic algorithm named Forward-Citation Full Path is proposed for complicated patent citation networks to identify the key technology development paths within each technology cluster of shale gas with a view to monitoring potential breakthrough technologies. And topic modeling method is adopted for patent abstracts to find out the potential topics with higher innovation activeness. Besides, we employ semantic mining means in combination with ThemeScape patent map1 to visualize topic distribution of all technology clusters and foresee potential development prospects of shale gas technology. And we aim at addressing the following questions:

  • (1)

    What kinds of laws do the technology innovation activity of shale gas present? And what is the status quo of the key technologies in this industry?

  • (2)

    Can the proposed algorithm effectively identify the key development paths for each technology cluster for the sake of monitoring the potential breakthrough technologies?

  • (3)

    What are the potential technology topics of shale gas with high innovation activeness and possible technology fields in future?

The remaining structures of this paper are as follows: Section 2 reviews relevant existing literatures; Section 3 describes the data sources and methodology; Section 4 discusses the empirical results; Section 5 summarizes the main conclusions and then puts forward some policy implications.

Section snippets

Literature review

The existing studies suggest technical revolution of energy can effectively promote the industrial development, and that key low-carbon technologies can facilitate the cleaning transition of energy-intensive sectors by means of enhancing the industrial potentials of energy-saving and emission mitigation [5], [6], [7]. Breakthroughs in two advanced technologies, namely horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, have contributed to cost advantages of shale gas extraction and feasible

Research framework

The research framework in this paper is shown in Fig. 1. Based on patent data, this paper quantitatively analyzes the development trends and status quo of technical innovation of shale gas in combination with patent maps. In consideration of complicated patent forward citation networks, we propose a dynamic algorithm named Forward-Citation Full Path to identify the key technology development paths within each key technology cluster of shale gas and thus monitor potential breakthrough

Spatiotemporal patterns of technical innovation on shale gas

Fig. 3 shows that the countries with active patent application of shale gas are closely related to resources distribution of shale gas. The East Asia and American continent are the main regions for technical development of shale gas. Please note that Fig. 3 takes the single country as the application unit and does not include 173 patent applications of the European Patent Office which account for 6% of the total amount, so Europe is also the important development area. The top four countries in

Main conclusions

The development of shale gas, as the catalyst for adjustment of geopolitical structure of oil and gas, is becoming an important driving force for low carbon energy strategy. This study quantitatively analyzes the development trends and status quo of technical innovation of shale gas Based on patent data. A dynamic model named Forward-Citation Full Path is investigated to identify the key technology development paths and thus monitor potential breakthrough technologies on those key paths. Then

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Key R&D Program (Grant No. 2016YFA0602603), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 71521002, 71642004). The authors would like to extend special thanks to the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions for improving the quality of this article.

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