Emotions may play an important role in how citizens respond to public policies, and energy policies in particular. Yet, little insights exist into causes of those emotions. This study investigates ethical concerns as the basis of emotions. We test whether people perceive an unequal distribution of negative outcomes of a local energy project as more unfair than an equal distribution thereof and, in turn, experience stronger negative emotions (hypothesis 1) and whether these effects depend on whether the project has personal consequences or not (i.e. the self-relevance of the project; hypothesis 2). In an experiment with a 2 (equal vs. unequal distribution) by 2 (self-relevant vs. not self-relevant) design (N = 282), we find support for hypothesis 1, but not 2. Furthermore, we find that perceived total amount of harm, an ethical concern about the total amount of negative outcomes bestowed on all people together, is also (marginally significantly) affected by the unequal distribution and relates to the emotions. We argue that justified ethical concerns are at the root of emotions about renewable energy projects and therefore emotions and their underlying ethical concerns should be considered for socially responsible as well as successful energy policy making.@en

This paper makes a conceptual inquiry into the notion of ‘publics’, and forwards an understanding of this notion that allows more responsible forms of decision-making with regards to technologies that have localized impacts, such as wind parks, hydrogen stations or flood barriers. The outcome of this inquiry is that the acceptability of a decision is to be assessed by a plurality of ‘publics’, including that of a local community. Even though a plurality of ‘publics’ might create competing normative demands, its acknowledgment is necessary to withstand the monopolization of the process of technology appraisal. The paper presents four ways in which such an appropriation of publicness takes place. The creation of dedicated ‘local publics’, in contrast, helps to overcome these problems and allows for more responsible forms of decision-making. We describe ‘local publics’ as those in which stakeholders from the different publics that are related to the process of technology implementation are brought together, and in which concerns and issues from these publics are deliberated upon. The paper will present eight conditions for increasing the effectiveness of such ‘local publics’.

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Public acceptability of low-carbon energy projects is often measured with one-off polls. This implies that opinion-shifts over time are not always taken into consideration by decision makers relying on these polls. Observations have given the impression that public acceptability of energy projects increases after implementation. However, this positive shift over time has not yet been systematically studied and is not yet understood very well. This paper aims to fill this gap. Based on two psychological mechanisms, loss aversion and cognitive dissonance reduction, we hypothesize that specifically people who live in proximity of a risky low-carbon technology—a hydrogen fuel station (HFS) in this case—evaluate this technology as more positive after its implementation than before. We conducted a survey among Dutch citizen living nearby a HFS and indeed found a positive shift in the overall evaluation of HFS after implementation. We also found that the benefits weighed stronger and the risks weaker after the implementation. This shift did not occur for citizens living further away from the HFS. The perceived risks and benefits did not significantly change after implementation, neither for citizens living in proximity, nor for citizens living further away. The societal implications of the findings are discussed. @en

Citizens’ emotional responses to energy technology projects influence the success of the technology's implementation. Contrary to popular belief, these emotions can have a systematic base. Bringing together insights from appraisal theory and from technology acceptance studies, this study develops and tests hypotheses regarding antecedents of anger, fear, joy, and pride about a local hydrogen fuel station (HFS). A questionnaire study was conducted among 271 citizens living near the first publicly accessible HFS in the Netherlands, around the time of its implementation. The results show that anger is significantly explained by (from stronger to weaker effects) perceived procedural and distributive unfairness, and fear by distributive unfairness, perceived safety, procedural unfairness, gender, and prior awareness. Joy is significantly explained by perceived environmental outcomes and perceived usefulness, and pride by prior awareness, perceived risks, trust in industry, and perceived usefulness. The study concludes that these predictors are understandable practical and moral considerations, which can and should be taken into account when developing and executing a project.

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