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Factors affecting renewable energy technology adoption policies of 50 states and district of Columbia in the USA

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Abstract

Renewable energy policies and adoption of new renewable energy technologies in different states of the USA are not uniform. The factors affecting the trends in adopting electrical energy generation using sustainable resources: wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and biomass as well as registered all electric vehicles in 50 states and district of Columbia in the USA was analyzed using multivariate linear regression analysis. Eight contributing factors: percentages of high school graduates; college graduates; total population; land area; percentage of water covered area; average annual income and registered democrats in the state were selected as predictor variables. Among eight factors considered, percentage of registered democrats was found as the most influencing factor (p = 0.00543) determining the renewable electrical energy adoption. The transition to all electric cars strongly co-related to higher average annual income of the population (p = 0.00141). In conclusion, an aggressive education campaign by environmentalist and pro-sustainability groups may help in de-coupling the energy and environment policies in the USA from political ideologies in order to achieve a more sustainable future.

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Factors Affecting Sustainable Energy Technology Adoption Policies of 50 States and District of Columbia in the USA

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Acknowledgements

We thank United States National Science Foundation Grant: NSF DMS -1950677, REU Site: Mathematical Modeling in the Sciences, for financial support.

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Author notes

  1. Ananda S. Amarasekara contributed in conceptualization, writing and editing of the publication

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Utah at Salt Lake City, 201 Presidents’ Cir, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

    Samantha Roberts

  2. Department of Chemistry, Prairie View A&M University, 700 University Drive, Prairie View, TX, 77446, USA

    Tristan Roland & Ananda S. Amarasekara

  3. Center for Energy and Environmental Sustainability, Prairie View A&M University, 700 University Drive, Prairie View, TX, 77446, USA

    Ananda S. Amarasekara

Authors
  1. Samantha Roberts
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  2. Tristan Roland
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  3. Ananda S. Amarasekara
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Contributions

SR contributed to data collection; literature review; methodology; and analysis using R, TR contributed to data collection and analysis using R, AS.A contributed to conceptualization; writing, and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ananda S. Amarasekara.

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Authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personnel relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Roberts, S., Roland, T. & Amarasekara, A.S. Factors affecting renewable energy technology adoption policies of 50 states and district of Columbia in the USA. Clean Techn Environ Policy 25, 211–219 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-022-02404-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-022-02404-z

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