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Lands, Leases and Public Records in Renewable Energy

Posted in: Blog by David Levine on September 10, 2009

If you live on planet earth, you’re probably all for renewable energy. Living systems, including ourselves, successfully process wind, water, sun and biomass to fuel health, growth and dynamic activities. Industry has always been modeled on nature, and is steadily improving its ability to mimic sustainable, generative systems like our biosphere.

In practice, moving from a fossil-fuel economy to a renewable energy base is more complicated. To produce fossil fuels, the earth did a lot of the work. It took the biomass, created by solar energy with some help from wind, water and minerals, pressure-cooked it into coal, oil and natural gas, and conveniently stored it under the earth’s surface. While the extraction of the fossil fuels may be difficult, disruptive and sometimes destructive, the rights to the materials under the earth are typically separated from the rights to use the surface. Before, after and even during extraction, there is value to the surface. With some notable exceptions, flora and fauna, including humans, are not completely displaced. New techniques and technologies, such as horizontal drilling, minimize surface impact.

Most renewable energy production requires more extensive use of the earth’s surface. Wind power, solar energy and biofuels, the most scalable forms of energy production encouraged by the present administration through proposed incentives, require extensive surface leases. The wildcatter (also known as a prospector or landman) has always operated by the motto “no lease, no grease.” In finding the right land to lease, the wildcatter is now supported by the agronomist, climatologist and geographer, rather than a geologist.

One major gating factor in the establishment of a renewable energy industry is the availability of public records related to land ownership, and a systematic method of identifying and and contacting land-owners of interest. In the early days of the renewable energy industry, it worked well for a landman to sit and court landowners. Today, the industry must scale rapidly and dramatically. Funding the creation of a records base will require both public and private financing. Because both the public and private sectors stand to gain substantially from this industry, let’s work together on the solution.

 

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