Appendix: Technical methodology for evaluating technical potential of energy technology deployment on federal lands

The methodology involves isolating specific federal agency lands in the contiguous US, intersecting these areas with resource suitability data from the Princeton Net Zero America Study and the Global Heat Flow Database, and applying conservative and optimistic capacity density estimates to calculate total gigawatt (GW) hosting capacity across four scenarios.

• The analysis focused on four federal agencies: the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR), while excluding lands managed by the National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS).
• The geographic scope was limited to the contiguous United States, specifically removing Alaska, Hawai’i, territories such as Puerto Rico, and the surface of the five Great Lakes to prevent data skewing.
• Resource suitability for wind and solar was based on the Princeton Net Zero America Study, which applied approximately 50 geospatial screens, including 12 safety exclusions (e.g., urban areas, flood zones) and 35 environmental exclusions (e.g., wetlands, national parks).
• The study established two sets of capacity density estimates (MW/acre) for the three technologies: a conservative set based on median literature values and an optimistic set based on PNZA research and the highest estimated value for geothermal from Grant (2002).
• The total estimated hosting capacity across all four agencies ranges from a 'Low-Low' estimate of 5,400 GW to a 'High-High' estimate of 47,700 GW, with the BLM holding the highest potential in all scenarios (ranging from 3,700 GW to 36,000 GW).

APA

Montgomery, M., & Eidbo, J. (2023). Appendix: Technical methodology for evaluating technical potential of energy technology deployment on federal lands. Clean Air Task Force. https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/07120159/methodology-appendix-technical-potential-federal-lands.pdf

Chicago

Montgomery, Mikenna, and Jessi Eidbo. Appendix: Technical methodology for evaluating technical potential of energy technology deployment on federal lands. Clean Air Task Force, 2023. https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/07120159/methodology-appendix-technical-potential-federal-lands.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Montgomery |first1=Mikenna |last2=Eidbo |first2=Jessi |title=Appendix: Technical methodology for evaluating technical potential of energy technology deployment on federal lands |publisher=Clean Air Task Force |date=4 December 2023 |url=https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/07120159/methodology-appendix-technical-potential-federal-lands.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{montgomery2023appendix, author = {Montgomery, Mikenna and Eidbo, Jessi}, title = {{Appendix: Technical methodology for evaluating technical potential of energy technology deployment on federal lands}}, institution = {Clean Air Task Force}, year = {2023}, month = dec, url = {https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/07120159/methodology-appendix-technical-potential-federal-lands.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }