Clean Tech: WSJ-NBC News Poll Suggests Americans Want it All When it Comes to Energy

US voters want solar and wind energy, but that doesn't mean they are against drilling for more oil, according to a Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll released this week. 

According to a WSJ article by Stephen Power on Thursday, "72% of respondents said developing alternative energy sources could 'accomplish a great deal.'

"When the question was asked another way, 61% of respondents chose 'developing alternative energy sources' as the step that should receive the most emphasis from policy makers."

And yet, "twenty-five percent responded that 'exploring and drilling for oil' in the U.S. should get the most emphasis, and 12% picked 'having Americans conserve and use less oil.' 

"When asked whether expanding areas for drilling for oil off coastal states was a step in the right direction, 63% said it was, with 44% saying it would accomplish 'a great deal.' Only 27% said that allowing more drilling off coastal states was a step in 'the wrong direction.' 

"Asked about building more nuclear plants, 53% said it was a step in the right direction. Thirty-one percent said it was a step 'in the wrong direction.'" 

Congress will come back to Washington in a few weeks and head into a debate about continuing alternative-energy tax credits and lifting the 27-year drilling ban off US coasts.

The poll suggests a need for a balanced approach. Hope Congress is listening.

For more on the poll: http://tinyurl.com/5cf6go

(Composed on BlackBerry; links to come; updated 8/30)

Global Climate Change: Brits Skeptical About Climate Change, But Does Anyone Care?

An Ipsos MORI poll released last Sunday found that a majority of the British public does not believe human activity has caused global warming.

According to the poll, which first showed up in The Observer, found that 60 percent of the 1,039 British adults surveyed agreed that "many scientific experts still question if humans are contributing to climate change," with a further 40 percent saying they "sometimes think climate change might not be as bad as people say."

Still, 75 percent of the respondents said they were "concerned about climate change."

According to the Observer, "More than half of those polled did not have confidence in international or British political leaders to tackle climate change, but only just over a quarter think it's too late to stop it. Two thirds want the government to do more but nearly as many said they were cynical about government policies such as green taxes, which they see as 'stealth' taxes."

But does it matter what folks in the UK think? Last we checked, it was the US that still needs to come around.

See original article in The Observer/Guardian online

Global Climate Change: Stuebi on New Scientist Climate Policy Poll

Polls can be meaningless. Sometimes its the sampling. Sometimes its untrustworthy respondents. Often, it's the interpreters who run roughshod over the results. It's easy to make a poll say what you want it to say: just ask the questions in a way that will give you the answers you want.

I'm skeptical about polls.

So is Richard T. Stuebi, the BP Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, and Founder and President of NextWave Energy, Inc:

"It seems to me that poll respondents give themselves far too much credit for being well-informed or magnanimous, relative to what they actually know or what will they will do when making real decisions that really affect them," Stuebi writes over at the CleanTech blog:

However, this past summer, a poll conducted and reported by New Scientist magazine did seem to shed some useful insights that policy-makers ought to consider. The reported highlights of the survey were that there was substantial public support in the U.S. for carbon limitations, that the public preferred outright standards to cap-and-trade or (egads!) carbon taxes, and that the desired focus of carbon reductions should be on the electric power sector than on vehicles (don't tread on SUV!).

In my view, the most illuminating finding was the weakness of support for carbon imitations if they induced any significant economic pain. In other words, respondents were fine with climate legislation -- as long as it really didn't cost much. On the other hand, when asked if they would support carbon emission requirements that would increase energy prices significantly -- which is likely to be the case to achieve the magnitudes of emission reductions that are widely viewed necessary to have meaningful impact in protecting the planet -- support evaporated.

But, Stuebi confesses, "This is one of the few instances where I actually believe what the poll results say, without any bias." The finding that changed his mind, Stuebi says, is "that -- to avoid catastrophic climate change during the balance of this century -- either we need to quickly develop a zero/low baseload carbon energy source that costs essentially no more than conventional coal generation, or that we quickly need to substantially increase U.S. political will and courage to endure economic sacrifice."

Stuebi's conclusion? "Either will be tremendously challenging. Failing on both counts could doom the planet."

Access the poll here: New Scientist