Updates

As Americans experience record-breaking heat waves, floods, and wildfires this August, solutions to climate change are advancing, and getting introduced in the U.S. Congress. But do Americans understand the connection between energy, pollution, and climate? Which energy sources do they support?

ecoAmerica’s American Climate Perspectives Survey found year-over-year shifts in awareness and attitudes on key energy sources. The results show fairly accurate understanding and support for wind and solar energies, accurate understanding and low support for oil and coal energies, misconceptions of nuclear and natural gas energies, waning support for gas, and rising support for both existing nuclear energy and new nuclear technologies.

“Decarbonization will require deployment of low-carbon technologies, but analysts have struggled to quantify which ones could be deployed in practice—especially where technologies have faced public opposition,” according to a new paper in Energy Policy.

This paper looks at how public opinion can affect deployment of low-carbon energies, and nuclear power in particular.

In the paper, the authors attempt “to disentangle public opposition due to the dread of nuclear power from opposition stemming from its actuarial risk.”