As near as can be estimated there are approximately 600 million blogs globally producing an average of 7.5 million daily posts – this amounts to just over 2.7 billion posts a year. So why add one more? Why add what amounts to another drop of water in the ocean of conversation constantly flowing around us every day? Well, because it’s how we communicate in the modern world. When done properly it affords the author the opportunity to research a thought or an idea that interests or affects them, to ask a timely question and investigate its possibilities, and to engage in a compelling, thought-provoking, and educational conversation with others.
To be manageable and to produce something of use and value to its readers, every effort at communication should have a target focus. The focus of this blog will be the intersection of energy production and the land identification, acquisition, management, and infrastructure necessary to allow the many forms of energy production and their producers to exist, to develop or generate their target resources, and grow to keep pace with the ever-evolving needs of the nation. The production, generation, and distribution of energy is a land intensive process requiring vast amounts of acreage. This blog will consider the acquisition, operational, and legal issues affecting not only the acreage required to site and produce energy, but also the land and rights needed to support the infrastructure and mining operations which underpin the Energy Industry.
Figure 1 - Correlation of U.S. GDP Growth & Delivered Energy
Regardless of whether one assumes a low or high growth scenario for the nation’s gross domestic product forecast, there is broad agreement that it and the U.S economy will be larger in 2050 than they are today. Further, it has, for at least the last century and a half, been axiomatic that in order for the nation’s productivity to increase (as measured by its GDP) the quantity of energy available to support this growth must increase as well. The graphs included above in Figure 1 demonstrate the correlative nature of GDP growth and the concurrent need for the increase in produced and delivered energy.
It is too simple to assume that there will be a single alternative that allows the nation to produce the amount of energy needed to meet all its current or future needs. The United States has a population of approximately 340 million people and supports the largest economy in the world. The U.S. economy is so large that the combined size of the next three largest economies barely exceeds it [1]. Providing an economy this large with sufficient energy to maintain this productivity is a daunting enough task before further provision is made to allow for the nation to continue to innovate and grow.
Figure 2 – U.S. Primary Energy Consumption by Energy Source
Figure 2 provides a visualization as to which forms of energy provide for the nation’s current needs. As of 2022, the United States is predominantly powered by oil and gas. A combined 69% of the nation’s raw energy needs are met by the efforts of the Oil & Gas Sector. While this percentage may evolve over time as alternate sources of energy production increase their productive capacity, it is fair to say that at the current time the nation relies on oil and natural gas to function. The Oil & Gas Sector has spent the better part of the last decade drilling wells on previously leased acreage to earn, secure, and hold as much of the acreage leased during the last great lease plays of 2005 through 2012 as practicable. The year-over-year production gains achieved by the Oil & Gas Sector have been nothing short of impressive. In 2023, the United States produced a record 12.9 million barrels of oil per day (“mb/d”). This represents a nine percent (9%) increase over 2022. This increase, while certainly impressive, will be difficult to sustain and grow as the existing wells start to see their production decline and their operational costs increase. Without the acquisition of new, unleased acreage and the opening of new oil and gas plays around the nation the sector will not be able to remain as dominant going forward. To achieve this, vast amounts of new acreage will have to be acquired, primarily through leasing but also on occasion by purchase. As new plays are acquired and developed new pipelines will be needed to bring this production to the downstream refineries and export terminals. To remain competitive, the Oil & Gas Sector will have to return to a program of acquisition and not just production, thereby making these acquisition efforts one of the core focal points of this blog.
By contrast, the Renewable Energy Sector started from the position of being a much smaller factor in meeting the nation’s energy needs but has continued to evolve and grow. Figure 3 below provides a visual representation of the major sources of domestic energy production over the preceding seventy years. During this period, there has been not so much a revolution as an evolution as to what sources of energy production provide the nation’s power. The same sources that provided the nation’s power in 1950 are still part of the mix today, but their percentage contribution has changed over time. Coal’s contribution has decreased by seventy percent (70.46%). The overall percentage contribution of oil & gas to the nation’s energy production has only risen slightly during that period, but interestingly the share of production each component brings to the category has reversed with natural gas now providing a larger share than does oil (respectively 36.04% to 23.95%).
Figure 3 – U.S. Primary Energy Production by Major Sources, 1950 – 2022
During this period, energy production by renewable sources has increased its overall share of U.S. energy production. In 1950, at the beginning of the data period, renewable energy would have been sourced from either hydroelectric, wood/biomass, or geothermal sources. Wind and solar power did not factor into the mix of energy sources providing for the nation’s needs. Between 1950 and 2004 renewable energy’s share of the nation’s energy mix barely increased at all rising from 8.39% in 1950 to 8.55% in 2004. During the next two decades as wind and solar projects began to come into service in ever increasing numbers and size that figure increased to 13.02%. This represents a 52.28% increase in only twenty years.
Renewable energy generation projects are incredibly land intensive. Depending on the efficiency of the solar panels to be installed, generating 1 MW of electricity requires approximately 7 acres of land. Utilizing that assumption, a utility-scale solar project able to generate 300 MW of electrical power will require between 2,500 and 3,000 acres of land on which to site the necessary panel arrays, collector lines, inverters, access roads, mineral set asides, regulatory setbacks, battery storage systems, and other required infrastructure. Owing to the unique needs of a solar generating site nothing else can be present on this acreage during the period when power generation is in operation. A utility-scale wind project will require approximately seventy-five (75) acres for each turbine installed in order to allow for the turbulence created by the operation of one turbine not to negatively affect the operations of nearby turbines. There is a wide range of turbine models available to developers, but many utility-scale versions will produce between three and five megawatts (3-5 MW) per turbine. Assuming the developer wishes to generate the same 300 MW’s as above, then the wind farm under development would need to encompass 4,500 acres. But as opposed to solar projects, wind farms can coexist with many other activities on the land and so become an additional revenue source for the landowner as opposed to a removal agent (albeit a lucrative one).
Add to the land issues arising from the production of oil & gas and the generative capability of wind and solar installations, those inherent and affecting the production and storage of blue and green hydrogen, renewable natural gas, and the capture, transport and storage of carbon dioxide and you have quite the panoply of exploration, production, generation, and transportation, infrastructure, and support mining issues that can affect the identification, acquisition, regulation, and management of land. These will be the source material for this blog. Judgment will not be made as to which forms of energy are better than others and this is not the place to turn to for political commentary. Ask anyone over the age of sixty what it is like to wait in line for hours to purchase gasoline or anyone who lived in Texas in February of 2021, when four days of abnormal cold effectively shut down the state’s electrical grid, what it is like to live in a situation where the power we rely on is not readily available. It is in the best interests of all Americans for this nation to continue to grow and develop its economy in the years and decades to come. To do this we will need every molecule and electron of power that can be produced and generated within the nation’s borders regardless of source. The ramifications, stories, tribulations, successes, and disputes that these processes give rise to should offer a substantial reserve of material for this blog.
[1] According to US New & World Report, in 2022, the last year for which final numbers are available, the United States had a GDP of $25.5 trillion, followed by China ($17.9 trillion), Japan ($4.2 trillion), and Germany ($4.1 trillion).
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