But it may be thwarted as landowners don’t own the mineral rights to their own property.
In some parts of northwestern Germany, screenings of the anti-shale-fracking film “GasLand” are a frequent occurrence… “People say, ‘We used to think nuclear energy was safe, now we don’t. So we don’t trust experts on fracking,’ ”… Incentives also work differently in Europe, where underground mineral rights belong to the state, not to landowners, as they do in the United States.”
FWIW, in some places in the USA, mineral rights are a separately property as well that can be sold or leased independent from the surface rights. I own mineral rights in Eagle Ford, but not surface property rights. I own my house (Texas) and the land it sits upon but not the minerals that might be under it. However, by owning the surface rights I do control the ability to park a rig in my backyard.