Americans Happy To Pay More For Clean Energy, But Only a Little More

Fluffeh writes "A recent study of over 1,000 folks for a paper published in Nature Climate Change has found that the average U.S. citizen is inclined to pay a premium to ensure that by 2035, 80% of U.S. power comes from clean energy. At random, respondents received one of three "technological treatments" or definitions of clean energy that included renewable energy sources alone, renewable sources plus natural gas, and renewable sources plus nuclear power. Delving into the socioeconomics, researchers found that Republicans, Independents, and respondents with no party allegiance were less likely by 25, 13 and 25 percentage points respectively to support a NCES than respondents that identified themselves as Democrats."

Nice editing, editors.

[T Murphy]

NCES = national clean energy standard. Not that you'd want to clarify that in the summary or anything.

Who cares

[GeneralTurgidson]

People started using less energy to go green, my power company jacked up rates. My power company invested in a wind farm and jacked up my rates. Power companies are always looking for a reason to raise rates, and many people don't have the ability to install solar panels.

Re:Why isn't renewable cheaper?

[SuricouRaven]

Higher capital costs, and the equipment isn't entirely maintainance-free. Photovoltaics only have a thirty-year designed lifetime, wind turbines need monitoring and occasional repair. Renewables are generally cheaper to run, as there are no fuel costs, but not enough to offset the much higher capital costs. Remember, if renewables were cheap, we wouldn't be using coal anyway.

Surface area required for solar powering the world

[Medievalist]

Solar currently requires a good bit of acreage before you even begin to reap enough energy to power a single, 1 story building.

You might be interested in this infographic.

http://www.landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127 [landartgenerator.org]

As it turns out, the world is remarkably large.

Re:And, of course

[localman57]

Why would someone go to MacD to get salads?

Because their friends who like burgers are also going there for lunch. The ability to placate the healthy eater or vegeterian in a lunch group has become vital to the lunch menu, particularly in urban business areas. If you don't have these items, you get Veto'd by one person out of six, and you lose the whole group to some place the one can settle for.

Re:true of almost anything altruistic, really

[Nadaka]

A fair amount of the money the LDS brings in goes to fighting against gay marriage. So they are actually harming society with their "charity".

Re:true of almost anything altruistic, really

[mcgrew]

The interesting question to me about this is always how much of a Church's revenue flows back out as social works.

It depends on the church. My church gives almost all of the tithes to the poor. Pat Robertson's, otoh, probably gives very little if any; those $4000 suits and $500 ties he wears and $70,000 cars he drives cuts into the kitty.

Personally, I feel that churches tend to be over-rated as charities.

Some are, some aren't.

I see a lot of charities that put my money to better use than our church committee can.

Maybe you should find a different church?

Re:Who cares

[mcgrew]

Have a look at these two photos:

Springfield, Il in 1930 [illinoistimes.com]
Springfield, Il today [google.com]

Personally, I like my air clean.