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Americans willing to pay more for renewable energy (new study in Nature Climate Change)
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/14/willing-to-pay-a-little-for-clean-energy/?smid=tw-nytimesgreen&seid=auto
May 14, 2012, 7:57 am
Willing to Pay (a Little) More for Clean Energy
By JUSTIN GILLIS
The perception that the American public is adamantly opposed to higher energy costs is at the root of most political opposition to policies favoring the adoption of renewable energy. But a new study of public opinion finds that people are in fact willing to pay to move to cleaner energy.
That willingness is fairly modest, to be sure. Analyzing a survey they conducted in 2011, researchers at Harvard and Yale found that the average United States citizen was willing to pay $162 a year more to support a national policy requiring 80 percent “clean” energy by 2035. Nationwide, that would represent a 13 percent increase in electric bills.
The willingness to pay was higher among Democrats than Republicans. More interesting, however, was that support dropped off when the definition of clean energy was expanded to include natural gas or nuclear power. Japan’s nuclear disaster at the Fukushima plant and the controversy over the natural gas drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing seem to have had an effect on public attitudes. If we are going to bother with it at all, the public seems to feel, we might as well go deep green.
<snip>
Majority rule does not really apply there, of course: getting anything controversial through the Senate, for example, requires 60 votes to break filibusters. With some number-crunching and assumptions about how preferences back home would influence the votes of lawmakers, the researchers found that the annual added cost per household of a clean energy policy would have to drop below $59 a year to pass the current Senate and below $48 a year to pass the current House.
<snip>
May 14, 2012, 7:57 am
Willing to Pay (a Little) More for Clean Energy
By JUSTIN GILLIS
The perception that the American public is adamantly opposed to higher energy costs is at the root of most political opposition to policies favoring the adoption of renewable energy. But a new study of public opinion finds that people are in fact willing to pay to move to cleaner energy.
That willingness is fairly modest, to be sure. Analyzing a survey they conducted in 2011, researchers at Harvard and Yale found that the average United States citizen was willing to pay $162 a year more to support a national policy requiring 80 percent “clean” energy by 2035. Nationwide, that would represent a 13 percent increase in electric bills.
The willingness to pay was higher among Democrats than Republicans. More interesting, however, was that support dropped off when the definition of clean energy was expanded to include natural gas or nuclear power. Japan’s nuclear disaster at the Fukushima plant and the controversy over the natural gas drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing seem to have had an effect on public attitudes. If we are going to bother with it at all, the public seems to feel, we might as well go deep green.
<snip>
Majority rule does not really apply there, of course: getting anything controversial through the Senate, for example, requires 60 votes to break filibusters. With some number-crunching and assumptions about how preferences back home would influence the votes of lawmakers, the researchers found that the annual added cost per household of a clean energy policy would have to drop below $59 a year to pass the current Senate and below $48 a year to pass the current House.
<snip>
The study is published in the journal Nature Climate Change
at http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1527.html
