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Disposing the rights to geothermal In total, the province holds the subsurface rights to resource development 81 per cent of Alberta’s 66 million hectares.13 If geothermal resource ownership is vested with the province, then the province will need to establish Alternatively, characterizing geothermal energy as a tenure system to dispense and manage the a water resource (as is the case in New Zeala [...] The province would have the project are the ones that secure the rights to very little discretion to allow or deny the claim – in develop. [...] The uncertainty of securing The owners of subsurface resources will typically the mineral rights through the auction process can require compensation for the development provide a disincentive to identify viable parcels to of their property through the form of a royalty. [...] For example, Once the province dispenses the rights to develop developers of oil and gas resources owned by the resource, the permit holder will generally Alberta pay a monthly royalty on production based need to perform work to confirm that the resource on the type of project (e.g., oil sands, conventional), they hold the rights to exists and is economically the price the resource is sold for, th [...] The royalty decision should consider Resource development phase a) the generally non-depletable nature of the After resource confirmation, the exploration permit resource; b) the other policy benefits derived from should automatically transition to a development the development of the resource; c) incentives/ permit.