Most Americans are just fine with living near renewable energy projects, a new poll finds. A Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released Tuesday finds that 75% of Americans would be comfortable living near a solar farm, while 68% feel that way about wind.
The numbers skew slightly when broken down by political affiliations (87% of Democrats and 66% of Republicans are fine with solar, while 79% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans are comfy with wind) but remain remarkably consistent across the urban-rural divide.
The poll comes as the nation faces an intense wave of new NIMBYism against renewable energy projects. Anti-wind sentiment “isn’t what the majority of people think, but they are managing to make a significant dent in wind energy development in this country,” Leah Stokes, an associate professor of environmental politics at the University of California at Santa Barbara who released a study on anti-wind attitudes last month, told the Post.
(Washington Post $)