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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."
People are only willing to pay a little more for clean energy because the full environmental cost of polluting energy has not been realized or seen by the majority, yet. Ask those in expanding tornado zones, or in newly created flood zones what they would pay for clean energy and Ill wager you will get very different results...
Well that's what happened here in Ontario, Canada. It got worse a bit further down the road when they decided to shove green energy down everyone's throat and kill the coal power plants. Last time I heard Ontario would have the highest power rates in North America by the end of 2013 if projections hold true, mostly due to our *lovely* FiT(Feed in Tariff) program. Which is currently paying a kick ass bounty rate as high as 68c/KWH for solar and wind power.
Fuck "clean" energy give me nuclear, coal and natural gas. Actually fuck it, I'm moving to Saskatchewan.
Om, nomnomnom...
They had to same authoritarian political ideology of the monarchs that preceded them. The difference is that they do not appeal to the divine right of kings for their authority, but rather make token gestures towards ruling for the good of society and murdering anyone who would speak against them. It is the same authoritarian political ideology that now infests America, using appeals to the divine hand of the free market as the superstition that placates the ignorant masses.