Roger Caiazza

According to Pew Research, Americans still want renewable energy, but support is waning.

Pew Research Center June 27, 2024

How Americans View National, Local and Personal Energy Choices

Most Americans want more renewable energy, but support has dipped. Interest in electric vehicles has also declined

By Alec Tyson and Brian Kennedy

The planet’s continued streak of record heat has spurred calls for action by scientists and global leaders. Meanwhile, in the United States, energy development policy is being hotly debated on the national and local levels this election year. How do Americans feel about U.S. energy policy options, and what steps are they willing to take in their own lives to reduce carbon emissions? A new Pew Research Center survey takes a look.

Among the major findings:

There’s been a decline in the breadth of support for wind and solar power. The shares who favor expanding solar and wind power farms are down 12 percentage points and 11 points, respectively, since 2020, driven by sharp drops in support among Republicans.

Interest in buying an electric vehicle (EV) is lower than a year ago. Today, 29% of Americans say they would consider an EV for their next purchase, down from 38% in 2023.

Still, a majority of Americans (63%) support the goal of the U.S. taking steps to become carbon neutral by 2050. When asked which is the greater priority, far more Americans continue to say the country should focus on developing renewable energy than fossil fuel sources (65% vs. 34%).

The survey, conducted May 13-19 among 8,638 U.S. adults, finds a fairly modest share of U.S. adults (25%) say it’s extremely or very important to them personally to limit their own “carbon footprint.” Far more give this middling or low priority.

These findings illustrate how large shares of Americans back more renewable energy that would decrease overall carbon emissions. Still, this general orientation does not necessarily translate into strong commitment to reducing personal carbon emissions or interest in buying an EV.

Read more: https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2024/06/27/how-americans-view-national-local-and-personal-energy-choices/

Maybe it is just me but the lead sentence claim that record heat is spurring action smacks of bias.  I checked the description of how they did the survey to see if my concerns were warranted:

Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand Americans’ views of energy issues. For this analysis, we surveyed 8,638 U.S. adults from May 13 to 19, 2024.

Everyone who took part in the survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way, nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

Here are the questions used for this report, along with responses, and its Methodology.

The questions used for the survey were not overtly biased.  Nothing like “In order to save the planet from imminent doom are you in favor of solar farms?”  My only reservation is that these questions were part of a bigger survey, so it is not clear if previous questions primed the pump towards climate impact alarm.  One other point is that the methodology was different from most surveys.  Instead of a phone survey the Pew Research Center has established the American Trends Panel “a nationally representative panel of randomly selected U.S. adults who participate via self-administered web surveys.”  I have no opinion if this affects survey results.

Rather than just provide the results of the survey the Pew website description addresses the question of what’s behind the declines in support for wind and solar.

Declines in public support for renewable energy have been driven by Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, whose support started to fall sharply after President Joe Biden took office in early 2020.

• 64% of Republicans say they favor more solar panel farms, down from 84% in 2020.
• 56% of Republicans say they favor more wind turbine farms, a 19-point drop from 2020.

Over this same time period, views among Democrats and Democratic leaners on these measures are little changed, with large majorities continuing to support more wind and solar development.

In some cases, gaps between Republicans and Democrats over energy policy now approach the very wide partisan divides seen over the importance of climate change.

In May 2020, Democrats were 26 points more likely than Republicans to say the country’s priority should be developing renewable energy (91% vs. 65%). Four years later, that gap has ballooned to 49 points, due almost entirely to changing views among Republicans – 61% of whom now say developing fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas should be the more important priority.

However, the authors do admit that it is not just political affiliation:

But changes in attitudes about policies that would reduce carbon emissions are not solely the result of more negative views among Republicans. For instance, the share of Democrats who say they are very or somewhat likely to consider an EV for their next car purchase has declined from 56% to 45% in the last year. And the share of Democrats who call climate change a very big problem for the U.S. has declined from 71% in 2021 to 58% today.

New York’s Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) mandates massive changes to the energy choices of New Yorkers that require action today.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 400 articles about New York’s net-zero transition.  One over-riding conclusion based on my work and discussions with others who share my concerns is that the majority of New Yorkers have no clue what is coming at them. 

Nationally the mandates and potential impacts are much less imminent, I believe that a big part of the decline in support of wind and solar is increased knowledge.  The survey includes more detailed questions regarding solar developments – Would solar development make the landscape unattractive, take up too much space, bring in more tax revenue, and lower the price you pay for electricity.  I believe that answering those questions requires personal knowledge and in my personal experience it has only been in the last several years that I have seen solar developments.  Having seen them I doubt many would think they are attractive and do not take up too much space.  The more knowledge people have the lower the favorability in my opinion.

The survey also addresses electric vehicles. 

Amid a major policy push at the federal level for electric vehicles, Americans are unenthusiastic about steps that would phase out gas-powered vehicles.

In March of this year, the Biden administration announced a rule aimed at dramatically expanding EV sales. Overall, 58% of Americans say they oppose these rules that would make EVs at least half of all new cars and trucks sold in the U.S. by 2032. Republicans overwhelmingly oppose this policy (83%). Among Democrats, 64% support these rules to expand EV sales, while 35% say they oppose them

In support of my belief that knowledge spurs skeptical concerns note the following results for a question about EV reliability:

As more people hear about electric vehicle experiences the reality of problems with the technology become evident.

The survey also included questions about personal carbon footprints.

Discussions about reducing carbon emissions often include the everyday actions people can take to reduce the amount of energy they use. One-in-four Americans say it is extremely or very important to them personally to limit their own “carbon footprint.” Larger shares say this is either somewhat (42%) or not too or not at all (32%) important to them.

There is one important aspect of energy choice that was not included in the survey.  What about the costs?  The follow up questions for wind and solar development included a question asking whether respondents thought that those developments would reduce electricity prices.  There were also questions about electric vehicle cost to purchase and refuel them.  Nothing about overall costs was included.  I have yet to see a poll that indicates that people are willing to pay much for the energy transition being forced down our throats.

The description of the survey claims that “large shares of Americans back more renewable energy that would decrease overall carbon emissions.”  It also admits that “this general orientation does not necessarily translate into strong commitment to reducing personal carbon emissions or interest in buying an EV”.  If the willingness to pay aspect had been incorporated into the poll, I have no doubts that support for wind and solar would drop significantly.  I am confident that as more people become aware of the hidden costs of renewable energy the inevitable result will be much less support.

Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York.  This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated.