Projected Landscape Impacts from Fossil and Renewable Energy Development in the Permian Basin, TX, USA

Abstract:

Projecting landscape impacts from energy development of both fossil and renewable sources is essential to land management decisions. In this work, we forecast landscape alteration resulting from energy development in the economically important Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, USA, by projecting current landscape trends through 2050, beginning first with oil and gas well-pad construction and then following with solar and wind electricity generation in 18 counties of Trans-Pecos Texas. For the fossil energy assessment, we modeled three landscape-impact scenarios (low, medium, and high) using recent (2008–2017) trends in well-pad construction and energy production. These scenarios suggest that ~60,000, ~180,000, and ~430,000 new well pads could be constructed, potentially leading to ~1000, ~2800, and ~6700 km² of new direct landscape alteration, two-thirds of which will be constructed within the geologic boundaries of the Delaware and Midland subbasins. If this comes to fruition, indirect impacts (from edge effects) could increase by twofold. To project infrastructure needed to support renewable energy development, which would include transmission lines, we will use output from an electricity generation capacity expansion model of Texas’ electricity grid operator (ERCOT) to identify the amount additional renewable energy that could be added to the existing fleet, and then estimate the land area needed to support that expansion. Lastly, we will create new roadway networks to connect new infrastructure with existing roadway networks, allowing for a right-of-way width that can accommodate new pipeline networks for transmission of hydrocarbon products. Because the largest portion of the study area resides within the fragile Chihuahuan Desert, and is projected to experience the largest areal alteration from future energy development, scenario building can be used to design proactive conservation strategies to reduce landscape impacts from future energy development.