Elsevier

Energy Policy

Volume 112, January 2018, Pages 45-55
Energy Policy

Public estimates of support for offshore wind energy: False consensus, pluralistic ignorance, and partisan effects

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.10.005Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Opinions toward offshore wind energy relate to perceptions of others' opinions.

  • Supporters and opponents of offshore wind projects underestimate public support.

  • Democrats and Republican opponents overestimate Republican opposition for a project.

  • Project supportive Republicans estimate relatively equal bipartisan support.

Abstract

Meeting future energy demands will require large-scale implementation of renewable energy projects. If one of these energy sources—offshore wind—becomes a common sight off coastlines, consideration of local public opinion and action will be critical. Previous research from the social sciences has lacked depth in examining the underlying factors that shape public opinion towards offshore wind development. The current research brings a new perspective to the literature by showing that how members of the public perceive support among others relates to their own opinions of offshore wind energy. We report results from two surveys. The first focused on opinion formation relating to offshore wind in general among New England residents, while the second focused on a specific offshore wind project in Rhode Island. We find evidence that both supporters and opponents of offshore wind underestimate levels of support among others, indicating a pluralistic ignorance effect and false consensus effect, respectively. We also find distinct patterns of perceived support among self-identified Republicans and Democrats. The findings hold important implications for policymakers and developers in understanding the nature of public support and opposition for offshore wind energy, particularly with respect to individuals’ willingness to publicly engage with offshore wind projects.

Introduction

Many argue that offshore wind has been guaranteed a place in the future energy portfolio of both developed and developing nations, including the United States. While countries around the world have started to follow Europe's vigorous adoption of offshore wind, the United States has been slow to play catch up. The first offshore wind demonstration project, the Block Island Wind Farm, was only completed in late 2016. This 30-megawatt, 5-turbine project is located off the coast of Block Island, an island 21 km off the coast of Rhode Island. This first project, in combination with many federal and statewide renewable energy goals, may be the catalyst many have waited for to jumpstart offshore wind development in the US. Indeed, academic researchers, developers, and politicians have suggested that commercial offshore wind farms may soon be a common sight in U.S. waters, particularly in the Northeast (DOE and DOI, 2016). Before this can happen, however, both technical and social barriers to offshore wind development must be overcome, and it is clear that the latter challenges are not insignificant. Understanding how various actors—including developers, policymakers, various stakeholder groups, and the affected public—view these projects will determine the rate of development as well as the long-term success of this technology, regardless of the technical advances that are already being made (e.g., Wüstenhagen et al., 2007).

For several years, researchers and polling organizations alike have tracked public opinion regarding various types of renewable energy projects (Gallup, n.d.). Much of these data are argued to be superficial in nature (Klick and Smith, 2010). More recently, social scientists have set their sights on understanding the human dimensions of offshore wind (Firestone and Kempton, 2007, Wiersma and Devine-Wright, 2014). What has emerged is a literature rich with data that describes the public's opinion of offshore wind. The ‘social gap’ and ‘individual gap’ that emerge when high levels of broad support for offshore wind turns into low success of project implementation and local opposition has been one of the main foci of research (Bell et al., 2005, Bell et al., 2013). The other is attempting to more thoroughly explain this opposition and determine the true meaning of the term ‘NIMBY’ (‘Not in my Backyard’) in this context (Devine-Wright, 2005). However, little research has focused on the underlying psychological and social factors that shape these opinions, with the majority of extant work providing only descriptive insights rather than deeper empirical analyses of the drivers of public opinion on this issue.

The present research advances our understanding of public opinion regarding offshore wind by examining how perceptions of other individuals’ support or opposition for such projects relates to one's own attitudes (and actions) towards offshore wind projects. Specifically, we show there exists a relationship between one's own opinion of offshore wind and one's perceptions of support among others, and that these perceptions are often incorrect.

Section snippets

Public opinion of offshore wind

In recent years, a combination of technological advancements and increased incentives has lowered the price of offshore wind energy, making it a viable energy alternative for many countries (Firestone et al., 2015). Due to the economic and environmental benefits of this technology, development of wind arrays has increased, particularly in European waters. Offshore wind turbines in part aim to minimize the human impacts that have been seen with onshore wind (e.g., shadow flicker), however social

Methods

Participants residing in New England were recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk marketplace (MTurk) between March and April, 2016 to fill out a survey on renewable energy (Buhrmester et al., 2011). MTurk provides an online platform that connects interested survey respondents with researchers; it allows researchers to restrict participant location by country or U.S. state via users’ IP address. Although the online platform is not wholly representative of the U.S. population, it has been shown

Study 2

The results of our first study, although limited due to a small sample size, provide valuable insight into the possible presence of both false consensus and pluralistic ignorance effects in the context of the public's attitudes towards offshore wind projects. In Study 2, we were interested in expanding on these results by collecting a larger sample of respondents and assessing beliefs about a specific offshore wind project. Given previously observed differences between support for generic

General discussion

We conducted two studies in which we examined individuals’ perceptions of support and opposition to offshore wind projects in the northeastern U.S. Both studies provide evidence that members of the public inaccurately underestimate levels of support for offshore wind projects. Evidence of partial pluralistic ignorance is apparent among supporters: individuals supportive of the technology overestimated opposition to offshore wind, though as a group they did not perceive majority opposition.

Conclusion and policy implications

The present paper highlights the importance of examining not only individuals’ own beliefs regarding emerging renewable energy technologies, but also their beliefs about others’ opinions. We find evidence of significant incorrect estimation regarding public support for offshore wind projects both generally and with respect to a specific case (i.e. Block Island), with both opponents and supporters alike overestimating public opposition to offshore wind energy. Such perceptions may play an

Funding

This work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Hatch Project 1007596. Funding source had no involvement past providing funds.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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