The predominance of economic development in the support for large-scale wind farms in the U.S. Great Plains
The predominance of economic development in the support for large-scale wind farms in the U.S. Great Plains
复制标题
经济发展主导美国大平原大型风电场支持
DOI：
10.1016/j.rser.2012.03.016
复制
发表时间：
2012
影响因子：
15.9
通讯作者：
M. Pasqualetti
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
M. Slattery;B. Johnson;Jeffrey Swofford;M. Pasqualetti
风能是世界上增长最快的发电来源之一。虽然公众和政界对风能的支持往往很高，但风电场的选址经常引起当地社区的关注，个别项目往往因公众的强烈反对而失败。本文介绍了一个邮政和在线调查问卷的结果，探讨公众对风能的看法，在两个最重要的风力发展，得克萨斯州和爱荷华州。其目标是更好地了解公众对大规模风能开发的反应，这是更广泛使用可再生能源的先决条件。我们发现公众对风能的支持程度很高，超过三分之二的受访者赞成在他们的社区或整个美国建立更多的风力发电场。鉴于大多数受访者对总体环境的关注程度非常高，我们还发现，近三分之二的受访者表示，使用化石燃料发电不会对环境造成损害，而且他们对全球气候变化几乎没有关注。我们的研究结果表明，在这些社区中，基于减少碳足迹来主张更多的可再生能源比简单地从风能是一种清洁安全的能源的角度来接近它更不具有说服力。超过三分之二的受访者认为他们的县从风力发电场中获得了经济利益，并且他们是该县创造就业机会的来源。这些社区对风力发电的支持更多地与社会经济因素有关，而不是基本的美学或道德价值观，风力发电场被视为扭转经济衰退的工具。
Wind energy is one of the fastest growing sources of power generation in the world. While general public and political support for wind energy is often high, siting wind farms frequently raises concerns in local communities, and individual projects often fail because of effective public opposition. This paper presents the results of a postal and online survey questionnaire that explores public perceptions of wind energy in two of the most important states for wind development, Texas and Iowa. The goal is a better understanding of public reactions to large-scale wind developments as a prerequisite of more widespread use of renewable energy resources. We found a high level of public support for wind energy, with more than two-thirds of respondents being in favor of building more wind farms either in their community or within the U.S. as a whole. Given that the majority of respondents had a very high level of concern for the general environment, we also found that almost two-thirds of respondents counter-intuitively indicated that producing electricity using fossil fuels is not detrimental to the environment, and that they had little concern for global climate change. Our results suggest that arguing for more renewable sources of energy based on reducing our carbon footprint is less persuasive in these communities than simply approaching it from the perspective of wind being a clean and safe source of energy. More than two-thirds of respondents felt their county had benefited economically from the wind farms and that they were a source of job creation in the county. Support for wind power in these communities is associated far more with socioeconomic factors than foundational aesthetic or moral values, with wind farms perceived as the vehicle that will reverse economic decline.