A new British government poll has revealed that support for clean energy has risen to 80 per cent, while just 29 per cent of Britons say they want to see more shale gas extraction.
The survey found British people are far more supportive of wind and solar power than nuclear power and shale gas, which puts the public at odds with the coalition government’s energy priorities.
The information comes from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), which publishes each April an annual survey of public attitudes.
Environmental news website RTCC reports the latest survey results contradicted the current direction in government energy policy, which favours shale gas and nuclear power over onshore wind, the cheapest form of renewable power.
The survey found that 80 per cent of the public support renewable power, compared with 42 per cent in support of nuclear power and 29 per cent supporting shale gas extraction.
RTCC reports that also of possible concern for policymakers, some low carbon technologies are clearly failing to grab the public’s imagination.
For example, three fifths of the population had never heard of carbon capture and storage (CCS), considered by experts a vital, although unproven, technology to avoid carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.
Of particular concern, the proportion of the population claiming not to have heard of CCS had actually increased, to 60 per cent from 59 per cent in the 2013 survey.
The findings suggest that the Conservative led government is failing to convince the British public of its present flagship energy policy, to create a shale gas economy.
The government has reported a “huge prize” for the United Kingdom from investment in shale gas, including a full supply chain worth up to £33 billion by 2032, and over 64,000 jobs.
At the same time the energy minister, Michael Fallon, announced that the Conservative Party, the senior partner in the present coalition government, would scrap support for onshore wind if it won the general election next year.
The government also recently gave the green light to support for a major new nuclear power plant.
The latest survey was conducted using face-to-face in-home interviews in March with a representative sample of 2040 UK households.
The survey showed that most Britons were undecided whether or not to support shale gas.
“Three quarters of the public (75 per cent) were to some degree aware of hydraulic fracturing for shale gas (fracking) in March 2014, a significant increase since March 2013 (52 per cent) and June 2012 (42 per cent), when the question was first asked,” the survey report said.
However, most people were undecided whether or not to support it.
Some 29 per cent of people supported shale gas, compared with 22 per cent opposed, while 44 per cent of people were undecided.
By contrast, 80 per cent of people supported renewable energy, while some four per cent were opposed, and 14 per cent were undecided.
Concern about climate change was growing slowly, 68 per cent of the population were very or fairly concerned, up from 66 per cent last year.
However, the proportion of people who thought that climate change was mostly caused by human activity, as was all but confirmed by a recent UN climate panel report, had fallen to 35 per cent of people from 38 per cent.
