Essential Report

Government spending on energy sources

Mar 10, 2020

Q To what extent would you support or oppose the Government spending taxpayers’ money to research the following energy sources?

	NET: Support	NET: Oppose	Strongly support	Somewhat support	Neither support nor oppose	Somewhat oppose	Strongly oppose
Renewables (such as large-scale solar or wind farms)	71%	12%	45%	27%	16%	7%	5%
Hydrogen technology	57%	10%	24%	33%	32%	7%	3%
Clean coal	50%	23%	20%	29%	28%	11%	11%
Nuclear	38%	35%	17%	21%	27%	15%	20%

		Gender			Age Group			Federal Voting Intention				Location
NET: Support	Total	Male	Female	18-34		35-54	55+	Labor	Coalition	Greens	NET: Other	Capital City	Non-Capital City
Renewables (such as large- scale solar or wind farms)	71%	71%	72%	74%		69%	72%	78%	66%	95%	63%	74%	67%
Hydrogen technology	57%	65%	51%	53%		52%	66%	58%	61%	63%	54%	59%	53%
Clean coal	50%	50%	50%	49%		44%	56%	43%	64%	28%	48%	51%	47%
Nuclear	38%	47%	30%	32%		34%	47%	34%	50%	25%	37%	39%	36%

71% of participants support the Government spending taxpayers’ money to research renewables, compared to 50% support for clean coal.
Support for research into renewables is higher in capital cities (74%) than non-capital cities (67%), and higher among Greens voters (95%) than all other voters (63%).
Coalition voters are most likely to support research into clean coal (64%) and nuclear power (50%) whereas Greens voters are least likely to support those energy sources (28% and 25% respectively).
Men tend to support research into hydrogen technology (65%) and nuclear (47%) more than women (51% and 30% respectively).
Participants over 55 years are more likely to support research into hydrogen technology (66%), clean coal (56%) or nuclear (47%) than those aged 18-54 (52%, 46% and 33% respectively).

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