Effects of Energy Development Strategies

The research program in energy (and to some degree minerals development) focuses on 1) elucidating factors that influence the impacts of energy generation, and 2) using this information to inform regional plans for energy development and analyze energy development strategies, such as renewable energy portfolios, or national energy policies. The work generally considers energy development as a driver of land cover change, and uses geospatial tools to analyze and forecast the consequences of energy development. The program has 3 main research areas.

• Wind energy footprints and efficiencies. Published estimates of the energy produced by wind for a fixed amount of terrestrial disturbance vary by an order of magnitude. This has large implications for comparisons of energy density between wind and conventional fuels or discussions of land use associated with renewable energy standards. Why do these estimates vary so wildly? One possibility is that they were measured accurately at each site, but various factors affect the spacing and road networks associated with wind. Another is that most published estimates are poorly derived. We are using aerial photography to fully digitize 44 wind facilities (roads, turbine pads, staging areas, barrow pits, grid connections, etc). By stratifying facilities by turbine size, topography and land use we can compare wind footprints across the nation and determine what types of installations, and in what geographic settings, most minimize surface impacts. In addition to location, the consequences of wind energy will be driven, in part by the total number of turbines installed, or how turbines are operated. Efficiency is a critical factor affecting the economic potential of a facility, the ability of the facility to curtail turbines in response to wildlife impacts, and ultimately the number of turbines the nation must install to meet electricity demand. We are just beginning to analyze energy generation data for wind facilities to determine if and how efficiencies vary across time and space and what factors drive these patterns.
• Integrated assessments of future energy development. During the last year and a half, Diffendorfer co-led a working group funded by the USGS Powell Center, an entity devoted to supporting interdisciplinary research inside and outside of USGS. Working groups are selected after competitive evaluation. USGS performs geological assessments of energy and minerals, per congressional order, for the nation and around the globe. In 2010, USGS spent $82M on energy and mineral assessments. USGS has a stated goal to expand the current assessment methods to include the environmental and human-health impacts of resource extraction and use. We proposed to develop a framework to conduct these integrated resource assessments using a team of scientists from academia, USGS, and other agencies. The team developed a Monte Carlo-based approach that bounds quantitative estimates of the impacts of development using estimates of technically recoverable resources from the geological assessments. We are writing a manuscript now and are seeking funding to begin a pilot study in the Uinta-Piceance Basin in western Colorado and eastern Utah.
• Regional scale energy analyses and planning tools. The US is experiencing a new wave of energy development from natural gas production via fracking, and renewable energy (wind and solar). At the same time, decision-makers are moving towards region-wide, proactive planning of land use, such as USFWS Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, and BLMs Rapid Ecoregional Assessments. I am involved in three projects aimed at both understanding broad scale impacts of future energy development and developing ways to plan development so it minimizes impacts.  
  • Energy and the Environment in the Rocky Mountain Area. This project encompasses Colorado and New Mexico and is geared towards developing a broad scope, geographically based understanding of how much and where current and future energy production might take place and how this could impact other resources of interest. The goal is to give policy makers, regulators, and energy developers an integrated set of information, or context, for making informed decisions. The project has 3 phases. First, is to deliver data to stakeholders in an integrated and easy to use manner. This web-based energy atlas is basically complete. In Phase 2, we are developing models to link current and future energy development to impacts on water and biological resources. The water models currently include vulnerability of aquifers to surface spills, and sedimentation, while the biological models link energy infrastructure (roads, wells, pipelines) to habitat loss, fragmentation, and behavioral avoidance. Phase 3 will allow users to employ the models to develop spatial assessments and non-spatial summaries of the projected effects of a proposed energy develop plan.
  • Large scale solar planning tool. Decisions regarding where concentrated solar project (CSP) should be located are complex and involve many factors that often conflict. For example, as part of the Solar Energy Development PEIS, the Western Governors' Association (WGA) identified geographic areas called Western Renewable Energy Zones (WREZ) for multiple technologies in West, while the Department of Interior partnered with the Department of Energy to produce Solar Energy Study Areas (SESA). In both cases, the zones were identified using methods aimed at minimizing environmental impacts while maximizing the economics of solar development. Despite similar goals, the selected locations do not always match. Furthermore, because assumptions and methods were not fully transparent, it is extremely difficult to understand how or why the two efforts produced different results. We developed a prototype site prioritization tool that uses consistent and transparent methodology but allows users to input the fundamental decisions used for locating new sites for development. The Joint Institute for Strategic Energy Analysis and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) funded this project, jointly authored with scientists from Stanford and NREL. Our tool used a multi-criteria optimization method to produce a map of potential locations for CSP development based on user decisions regarding a suite of criteria. In so doing, each run documents selected criteria, and generates a transparent set of decision rules for each set of predicted locations. 
  • Rapid Ecoregional Assessment for the Wyoming Basin. We are funded by the Bureau of Land Management to perform one of their eight currently funded Rapid Ecoregional Assessments. In a sense, this is a 'live test' of the methods and approaches described above. The Wyoming Basin includes the majority of Wyoming, portions of northern Colorado and Utah, and southeastern Idaho. Ecoregional assessments integrate information on ecological conditions and natural and human drivers of change, to identify opportunities for multi-use landscapes that include conservation, restoration, and energy development. This is a stakeholder driven process in terms of identifying the underlying conservation and development values for the region, but we are developing the geospatial analytical methods to forecast climate and energy driven land use change in the system.