Energy is perhaps the single most important long-term policy issue currently facing the United States and the state of Michigan. Energy is at the core of our future ability to maintain and increase the U.S.'s economic output, standard of living and national security. While the demand for energy will continue to grow, there is an enormous opportunity to reinvent and grow the U.S. and Michigan economies by creating renewable energy industries. Strategic development of renewable energy policy that is based in sound science and information will be crucial to addressing current opportunities.

Renewable energy is derived largely for the current landscape, creating a new set of pressures on land, including:

• Wind energy resource assessment; 
• Local and state policy for siting for both large scale development and small turbines; 
• Finding space for solar energy generation; 
• Agriculture's role in providing both food and fuel; 
• Finding the land resources to produce the next generation of bio-fuels; and
• Developing the informatics infrastructure to enable the creation of renewable energy policy that is based in sound science.

Thus, the Land Policy Institute's Land Policy Research Program is committed to helping the U.S. and Michigan develop renewable energy policy that can help deliver on the promise of renewable energy.