Temporal stability of public acceptability of novel and established energy technologies

Abstract

This study examines how stable public acceptability judgements towards novel and established energy technologies are over time, which is important to consider in decision-making about the transition to low-carbon and energy-efficient systems. We conducted two longitudinal survey experiments, one with a convenience sample of students and another with a representative sample of Dutch adults, to explore the extent to which acceptability judgements towards energy technologies are stable over time and to examine potential factors influencing stability of acceptability judgements, including technology novelty, people’s knowledge about a technology, ambivalence towards a technology, perceived importance of the technology, and personal values. We also tested if stability affects citizenship behaviors (e.g., signing petitions, supporting political candidates) towards energy technologies. As expected, acceptability judgements are less stable for novel (i.e., geothermal energy and CCS) than for established technologies (i.e., wind and nuclear energy). Moreover, the more ambivalent people felt towards a technology and the less an energy technology was personally important to them, the less stable their acceptability judgements. Yet, neither knowledge nor personal values were significantly related to stability of acceptability judgements. Interestingly, acceptability judgements were associated with citizenship behavior regardless of how stable acceptability judgements were. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our findings.