LANSING – A poll of 600 likely voters across the state has found great preference for elected officials and candidates who support the use of clean, renewable energy such as wind or solar power, rather than traditional energy sources like coal.
More than 75 percent of those surveyed in a poll commissioned by a group supporting alternative energy sources demonstrated strong support for a policy to require Michigan’s utilities to have at least 30 percent of their electricity come from renewable sources by 2035, said Lori Weigel of Public Opinion Strategies, which conducted the poll (and considers itself to be the largest Republican polling firm in the nation).
Support for energy efficiency is even stronger, with 84 percent indicating support for more energy efficiency programs, including 74 percent of Republicans and 66 percent of self-identified tea party voters, she said.
Wind power dominated when it came to which renewable source respondents would like to encourage most, followed by solar power and then natural gas, hydropower, and nuclear. Coal came in last place in terms of a source respondents wanted to encourage (only 11 percent agreed with it).
The scale tips nearly the same way when it came to what energy source respondents wanted to discourage, with the majority saying coal, followed by nuclear power and then other forms of renewable energy.
“Coal tended to be associated with the words ‘dirty’ and ‘old’,” Weigel said in a press call held Tuesday by the group Michigan Conservative Energy Forum, which also paid for the study.
And while the majority of respondents said they would strongly support a renewable energy standard of 30 percent by 2035 (the state currently has 10 percent by 2015), they also hoped the standard would be far higher, the poll found.
“Michigan voters say that if it were up to them, an average of 57 percent of their energy would come from renewable sources,” the study stated.
Conservatives and independent voters cited benefits to clean air and reducing pollution, public health benefits, environmental benefits and economic benefits as reasons they supported renewable energy, Weigel said.
The poll was conducted through a telephone survey between December 9-11, 2013, using both landlines and cell phones. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, and the sample was proportional throughout the state by county and demographically representative of the electorate, Public Opinion Strategies noted. It was preceded by four focus groups of voters considered “center/right” in the Grand Rapids and suburban metro Detroit regions.
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