In the survey of 949 people, more than 90 percent supported erecting large wind turbines off the Delaware coast to increase the amount of available electricity. They were in support of it even if it increased their electric bills by up to $30 per month.
The survey was conducted by Jeremy Firestone and Willett Kempton, marine policy scientists from the University of Delaware, and doctoral student Andrew Krueger.
"Based on our results, Delaware could become the Denmark of the United States when it comes to relying on offshore wind power as a major energy source," Firestone told the Web site physorg.com. "Delawareans are amazingly supportive of it."
To them, the results were a surprising reversal of opinion from previous surveys.
In 2004 and 2005, Kempton and Firestone surveyed 500 people in Cape Cod, Mass. and found a large amount of resistance toward a plan to put a wind farm of 130 turbines in Nantucket Sound.
In the Delaware survey, the researchers found that nearly 78 percent of Delawareans statewide would support an equivalent to the Massachusetts plan, placing a wind farm off the Delaware coast. Only 4 percent were opposed.
The participants in the Delaware survey were asked the same questions as those in the Cape Cod survey, including computerized photos to show what having the wind farm be placed there would look like from various distances.
The researchers are unsure why there was such a discrepancy between the results of the Cape Cod and Delaware surveys, but it was suggested that a �well-financed opposition� group to the Cape Cod project may have affected opinions on putting wind power there.
For one of the researchers, he believes interest in wind power will trend upward nationwide.
"I think interest in wind power and other renewable energy sources is now growing not only in Delaware, but nationally due to the rising cost and long-term supply issues associated with traditional energy sources, as well as other concerns such as global warming," said Kempton.
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