Public Acceptance of Renewable Energy Sources: a Case Study from the Czech Republic

Inna Cabelkova (), Wadim Strielkowski, Irina Firsova and Marina Korovushkina
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Irina Firsova: Department of Marketing, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow 125993, Russian Federation
Marina Korovushkina: Department of Language Training, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow 125993, Russian Federation

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 7, 1-15

Abstract: The substitution of traditional energy production with renewable energy sources (RES) in the European Union (EU) represents a multidimensional issue with its pros and cons viewed differently by governments, technology companies, markets, as well as the general public. There are significant public doubts in expediency of investments in renewables in place. Our paper studies the factors related to the public opinion on renewables using a reasonable and representative sample of respondents (N = 1026) from one of the EU Member States, the Czech Republic, via a set of ordinal regression analyses with spline correction for ordinal predictors. Our results suggest that the population of the Czech Republic is split in half in its trust in renewables as a substitute to traditional energy sources. In addition, our results show that the opinions on renewables in the Czech Republic are significantly related to personal concerns on environmental protection and worries about use of nuclear energy. Moreover, we find that traditional mass media is not statistically significant, even though internet news channels and social media were statistically related to the opinions (negatively and positively, respectively). The comparison of the responses with respect to the frequency of following social media support the hypothesis of the media bubble. The empirical results indicate that public opinions on renewables are likely to be built on the information sources vulnerable to hoaxes, bubbles, and misinformation. We conclude that more media presentation on RES is needed and make some practical suggestions for the stakeholders, journalists, and relevant policymakers.

Keywords: renewable energy sources; public opinion; mass media; European Union; Czech Republic; energy policy; social networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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