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Topic: Emerging Tech

Is support for clean energy waning among U.S. consumers?

Summary: Biofuels suffers the biggest decline in consumer favorability in Pike Research's latest survey of attitudes toward clean energy.

Heather Clancy

By for GreenTech Pastures |

A report from cleantech market watchdog Pike Research suggests that U.S. consumers had a less favorable view of clean energy technologies at the end of 2011, compared with just two years earlier.

In 2009, 50 percent of those surveyed had an "extremely" or "very" favorable view of the 13 different clean energy technologies considered. That number dropped to 43 percent in late 2011, among the 1,000 U.S. adults considered by the annual Pike Research "Energy & Environment Consumer Survey."

Biofuels got the biggest cold shoulder from those surveys: the favorability level for biofuels among those surveyed in 2011 was 39 percent, compared with 56 percent in 2009. The smart grid concept also suffered a large decline in perception.

Here's a list of the 13 clean energy concepts considered by Pike Research, along with the percentage of respondents that said they had either a "very favorable" or "favorable" view of the concept of technology.

  • Solar (77 percent)
  • Wind (71 percent)
  • Hybrid vehicles (61 percent)
  • Electric cars (55 percent)
  • Natural gas cars (51 percent)
  • Clean coal (42 percent)
  • Nuclear power (40 percent)
  • Biofuels (39 percent)
  • Smart meters (38 percent)
  • Smart grid (37 percent)
  • Carbon offsets/credits (19 percent)
  • LEED certification (18 percent)
  • Cap and trade (14 percent)

It is REALLY interesting to me that the Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) green building system has such little name recognition among consumers. About 45 percent of the consumers surveyed said they were unfamiliar with the program: which should be a wakeup call to all the big companies that love touting all those credentials. (I'm not saying not to work on them, but apparently it doesn't really affect consumer perceptions about your company.)

What to make of this data?

I'm not necessarily convinced that is means people don't support the idea of clean energy, I just think it means consumers have a lot more on their minds to worry about, especially the economy. Sadly, many people still fail to make the connection that investments in new technologies could have a stimulative effect.

Topic: Emerging Tech

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8 comments
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  • Where has such investment in clean tech had a stimulus effect?

    Spending money to reach a lower level of efficency will not stimulate an economy.

    I can point to wind/solar in Spain, solar in Germany, wind in Britain, US green energy investments, and the disastrous green programs here in Australia (pink batts) as examples of the opposite. The massive amounts in these programs have been wasted, the interest on borrowings will weigh on tax payers for generations.

    Please point to one example, anywhere, of the stimulus claimed. Somewhere one green job isn't at the expense of more than one regular job. They money must come from somewhere, typically the productive subsidizing the unproductive rentseeker.
    Richard Flude
    Reply Vote

  • A good dream, but reality is terrible.

    "It is REALLY interesting to me that the Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) green building system has such little name recognition among consumers. "

    They need a shorter name. And more bullish advertising.

    "I just think it means consumers have a lot more on their minds to worry about, especially the economy. "

    Yup.

    "Sadly, many people still fail to make the connection that investments in new technologies could have a stimulative effect."

    Hard to invest if there's nothing locally to invest into. Having a green energy company in California won't help Kansas.

    So - it's a good dream, but the reality is that there's not always the choice :(. Green stuff tends to be regional, not nationwide. And that's a big problem.
    CobraA1
    Reply Vote

  • RE: Is support for clean energy waning among U.S. consumers?

    Is it really a lack of support on the part of the consumer? Perhaps, for the LEED green building system it is a lack of knowledge. However, aren't carbon offsets/credits and cap & trade merely pathways for the worst polluters to continue polluting? Nuclear power has taken a big safety hit with the Fukushima disaster that is still unfolding in Japan. It's also very expensive, requiring large government subsidies. Given the current threat landscape on the Internet, is the smart grid really a smart idea? Think of Iran's Natanz centrifuge plant and the U.S. Air Force drone systems that were hacked. And, in these two examples, air gaps were present. Neither had internet access. Corn-based ethanol in the U.S. has given biofuels a bad name as it is *extremely* inefficient, requiring huge inputs of energy. How much better are the other biofuels alternatives?

    Perhaps, the best clean energy technologies are rising to the top, while the worst are falling to the bottom?
    Rabid Howler Monkey
    Reply Vote

    • I do have to wonder

      "Given the current threat landscape on the Internet, is the smart grid really a smart idea?"

      An excellent question. With the current threats getting higher profile all the time with cyber-terrorist groups like Anonymous - is it really such a hot idea to start making even our basic utilities "smarter"?
      CobraA1
      Reply Vote

  • Favorablility

    My lack of a favorable rating on these issue is not due to a lack of understanding. Biofuels, solar power, and wind energy require huge tracks of land and enormous investments. I have a very favorable opinion of geothermal and nuclear. Leeds is a certification system that costs money, just build efficiency into the building without getting it certified and you save big bucks. Following the guidelines make good sense in most cases, getting it certified is a waste of money.
    hayneiii@...
    Reply Vote

  • You say Solyndra, I say synfuels

    I think part of the problem is that some good ideas and some not-so-good ideas got tossed into a single bucket by planet-saving crusaders, leading most people to dismiss the lot of them as a bunch of Unicorns and rainbows when --as always happens with new technologies -- there were spectacular failures.

    It might have been better to be less triumphant until there were some actual triumphs.
    Robert Hahn
    Reply Vote

  • It's The Marketing, Stupid

    The five things at the top of the list are the concepts that (a) have been around longest and (b) are the easiest to understand. What a shock. (Even nukes, which are dangerous, score fairly well.)

    When people can explain, in a twitter post, the ROI (for consumers) of LEED Certification or Smart Meters, they have a chance to succeed. But even then, they'll need to be around for 20-0dd years to sink in
    Woody Goode
    Reply Vote

  • I see it as giving up hope

    I think at that time people were more hopeful that the new administration was going to champion green energy tech.. that the country could soon be flush with green jobs making green products towards an environmentally and economically brighter future. Now it's clear that it was a pipe dream, a lot of people have lost that hope.
    Htalk
    Reply Vote
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