When it comes to producing a sustainable and plentiful supply of energy, the U.S. has a huge, underappreciated advantage over other nations. Here, individuals and private companies are allowed to own mineral rights, such as oil, copper, coal and copper. That’s not true in other countries, where governments own any minerals beneath the surface of your property. If you discover oil in your backyard, tough luck, it belongs to the government.
This segment of What’s Ahead lays out the profound implications of private ownership, ranging from incentives to exploration to innovations, such as hydraulic fracturing, a.k.a. fracking. These account, for instance, for the reason that the southwestern U.S. outproduces Mexico in oil and gas, even though the geology of the two countries is similar. When it comes to minerals, Mexico, like most countries, is—from the top down—government-controlled.
