Nearly half the British public believe investing in renewables is the top priority for energy security, according to a new poll.
Nearly half the British public believe investing in renewables is the top priority for energy security, according to a new poll.
Perhaps more surprisingly, the view is reflected by voters across the four largest parties – including UKIP.
Almost half (48 per cent) of those surveyed picked investing in renewables as their number one energy priority, far ahead of building new nuclear reactors, which came in second at a distant 15 per cent. Support for fracking trails fourth at 13 per cent, after ‘reducing consumption’.
Fracking was even less popular in the forty most marginal Tory/Labour seats, with just 8 per cent seeing it as the most important energy priority – a worrying finding for pro-fracking incumbents.
Just 2 per cent of UKIP supporters think that reducing the number of future onshore wind-farms should the government’s main priority, while 37 per cent believe that investing in renewables is the most important energy need.
Securing our energy supplies was seen as a top five priority for the majority of voters, with 53 per cent ranking it an urgent issue.
Commenting on the poll, RenewableUK chief executive Maria McCaffery said:
“This poll shows that the public want to tackle our energy security crisis by investing in renewables like wind, wave and tidal power and offsetting the need to import volatile and dirty fossil fuels from insecure parts of the world. Onshore wind, as the cheapest low carbon electricity source is a crucial component of that so it’s no wonder that the electorate will reject Parties that rule out its future use.”
The ComRes poll for RenewableUK follows a study last week which showed that politicians opposing wind development are a ‘turn off’ for voters.
63 Responses to “Half UK voters support renewable energy as ‘top priority’”
Leon Wolfeson
No, and you’re determined to prop it up with fossil fuels. It’s absolutely ridiculous, and we’ll need to follow them unless we replace our base-load power with nuclear energy.
Cole
You mean the fracking companies getting tax breaks from Osborne?
itdoesntaddup
Quite right. It’s middle class welfare.
itdoesntaddup
You will find plenty of references to studies at the link I provided. Proper, peer reviewed ones. When I last knew, Statoil, EdF, RWE etc. are all non UK companies – and they’re the ones collecting the wind farm subsidies to be paid out for imported windmills and imported maintenance workers. Please don’t pretend that you don’t know this.
itdoesntaddup
You are arguing for nuclear for which we have no cost efficient supplier – you’re just handwaving and assuming we can get one in short order, not even recognising that new nuclear investment is on a 15 year time horizon to procure and build. It’s unrealistic to consider as an option to meet our immediate needs.
If we go for gas then a) there are increasing numbers of competing suppliers as LNG projects come on stream, and b) if we get on and develop the gas we have we would not have any need to import gas at all for 50 years, by which time we should have more viable nuclear technology.
I have no investment in, nor do I work for any kind of energy company. Any advantages that come from sensible energy policy would be to the benefit of the people of this country (more especially those on lower incomes who struggle to afford expensive energy), and their prospects for jobs. That’s why I support it.
Germany has chosen coal because that is what it has: it gives it real energy security. They have found out the hard way that large doses of renewables do not offer secure supply, and create major problems for grid distribution and maintenance of backup power sources. Germany now is second only to Denmark for the cost of electricity.