The Public Wants New Energy

Americans really want the US to adopt renewable energy like wind and solar power, while rejecting fossil fuels like coal

Joseph Zeballos-Roig and Angela Wang, October 1, 2019 (Business Insider)

“…[A large bipartisan] majority of Americans strongly favor cleaner sources of energy over fossil fuels…[B]oth self-identified Democrats and Republicans support the idea of the nation transitioning towards renewable sources of energy…Solar and wind power were the top two preferred alternative energy sources…The use of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power has doubled in the last decade, according to the US Energy Information Administration, and federal and state policies combined with the declining cost of production drove much of the growth…Natural gas, which is a cleaner-burning fossil fuel, overtook coal as the nation's top source of electricity in 2016, highlighting the energy transition currently underway…

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Solar power was the most preferred form of energy…Wind was the second-ranked energy source…Hydroelectric power ranked third…Geothermal power was fourth…[Natural gas, biomass, petroleum, and nuclear followed, and coal] ranked dead-last…[But the Trump administration has loosened environmental regulations and] threw a lifeline to the struggling coal industry by easing restrictions on coal-burning power plants. The Energy Information Administration projects that it won't reverse coal's decline and that its share of electricity generation will be 22% in 2020…[As] the federal government pulls back from combating climate change under the Trump administration, states and cities are increasingly filling the void, setting the US in an opposite direction the public favors…” click here for more

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