Exploring future scientists' awareness about and attitudes towards renewable energy sources

Highlights

• Strong support for renewables was recorded.

• Positive environmental attitudes were indicated.

• Forestry students recognized the need for energy transition.

• Stricter legislation against polluting energy producers was preferred.

• Fourth- and fifth-year students showed greater interest to work in the renewable sector.

Abstract

Abundant research has focused on the public acceptance of renewable energy sources (RES) since their successful implementation is often dependent on the public. Yet, little is known about the attitudes of university students towards RES whose study field is related to the environment, even though the mindset of these students is considered relevant since they are possible experts in the RES field. To contribute to this neglected research strand, this paper aims to explore the awareness about and attitudes towards RES of students majoring in the Department of Forestry and Management of the Environment and Natural Resources at the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece. Results based on quantitative data collected via questionnaire show that the surveyed students support renewables and have awareness about the current polluting energy system. Moreover, they have positive environmental attitudes and fully recognize the need for energy transition. Finally, there are significant differences among students from different years of study, highlighting that fourth- and fifth-year students take greater interest in working in the RES sector after they complete their studies.

Introduction

For centuries, fossil fuels have been exploited enabling mankind to meet its increasing energy needs, however, in the recent years the use of renewable energy for electricity production has managed to question the dominance of fossil fuels. That is mainly because renewable energy provides energy which is not only infinite, but also ‘clean’ in terms of carbon emissions. In this context, it comes as no surprise that renewables have gained recognition and are often viewed as an effective alternative to fossil fuels (Tsantopoulos et al., 2014).

Most countries, however, still depend mainly on fossil fuels to fulfill their energy demands. In Greece, the electricity production system is of particular interest as it involves both conventional and renewable energy production. Specifically, the electricity generation system is divided into the interconnected mainland electricity network and the non-interconnected electricity systems of the Aegean Archipelago islands (Roinioti and Koroneos, 2019; Kaldellis et al., 2009). Notably, in the autonomous electricity network of the islands the 250 thermal power units include 13 autonomous and 19 local power stations, which operate with imported diesel and heavy oil, while the mainland's electricity grid is supported by 15 major thermal power stations rated at 8200 MW with 13 of them being owned by the Greek Public Power Corporation (Kaldellis et al., 2009). At the same time, the existing electricity generation units are based on local lignite resources making lignite the primary fuel to produce electricity. Indicatively, in the year 2015 lignite accounted for 43% of the total electricity generation, while natural gas and oil accounted for 17% and 11%, respectively (Roinioti and Koroneos, 2019). Regardless of the undeniable dominance of fossil fuels, the country has made remarkable progress in deploying renewables in the Greek energy system and the overall share of energy from renewable sources increased from 6.9% in 2004 to 17.0% in 2017 (Eurostat, 2019).

Further growth in the RES share rate could be achieved since Greece presents an impressive renewable energy potential. According to numerous measurement stations throughout the country, Greece has been found to be highly advantageous regarding wind and solar power potential (Kyriakopoulos et al., 2018). Moreover, it is worthwhile to note that in 2006 Greece had already the second highest share of solar photovoltaics in the total primary energy supply among IEA countries (International Energy Agency, 2019), while the country could become one of the most ‘RES-blessed’ energy rich countries in the future (Kotroni et al., 2014).

Undeniably, European policies and directives have paved the way to a sustainable Greek energy system. To put this differently, as a member state of the European Union Greece is bound to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and meet specific emissions reduction targets. Indeed, the country has achieved the Kyoto Protocol target of reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 25% below the levels recorded in 1990, whereas for the period 2013–2020 the target is to lower the rate at 4% below 2005 levels (Roinioti and Koroneos, 2017). Yet, the future target of emissions reduction seems even more challenging since the European Union requires all member states to attain a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 relative to 1990 levels (European Commission, 2019).

Understanding the key role of renewables in achieving these goals, research has turned its attention towards the public opinion on renewable energy. For the most part, this body of literature focuses on the acceptance and attitudes of citizens to different renewable energy types (such as the research works of Firestone et al., 2018; Scherhaufer et al., 2017; Sonnberger and Ruddat, 2017; Tabi and Wüstenhagen, 2017; Tampakis et al., 2017; Strazzera and Statzu, 2017; Zhai and Williams, 2012; Tsantopoulos et al., 2014; Malesios and Arabatzis, 2010; Eltham et al., 2008). Although public opinion on renewable energy has gained prominence in research, only a few studies have examined explicitly university students' attitudes to RES (Ahamad and Ariffin, 2018; Karatepe et al., 2012; Qu et al., 2011; Ozil et al., 2008) and among these studies only the research works of Ozil et al. (2008) and Karatepe et al. (2012) examine students' awareness levels about RES beside attitudes. In this regard, an interesting research gap is observed as only few studies have explored the awareness about RES of students majoring in sciences which are directly related to the environment and RES implementation, such as forestry.

In Greece, certain departments are highly involved in the environment, such as the Department of Forestry and Management of the Environment and Natural Resources at the Democritus University of Thrace, the Faculty of Forestry and Natural Environment at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the Department of Environmental Engineering of the Democritus University of Thrace, the School of Environmental Engineering of the Technical University of Crete, the Department of Environment at the University of the Aegean, the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources Management of the University of Patras as well as the forestry departments of various Technical Institutions. Of these, in the Department of Forestry and Management of the Environment and Natural Resources of the Democritus University of Thrace undergraduate students attend the highest number of courses familiarizing them with various topics on renewable energy, but also courses aiming at enhancing their environmental awareness. These courses involve “Renewable Energy Sources”, “Energy and Environment”, “Investments and Development of Forest Resources”, “Forest Energy”, “Environmental Education” and “Environmental Communication”. At the same time, the curriculum of the Department of Environmental Engineering of the Democritus University of Thrace contains only two energy-related courses which are “Technologies of Renewable Energy Sources” and “Design of RES systems, while in the School of Environmental Engineering of the Technical University of Crete students attend three energy-related courses which are “Energy and Environmental Technologies”, “Design of Energy systems” and “Renewable Energy Sources”. In addition, the curriculum of the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources at the University of Patras includes the courses “Environment and Energy” and “Environmental Education”, whereas the Department of Environment at the University of the Aegean offers the courses “Environmental Communication and Education” and “Energy and the Environment”. On the other side, the forestry departments in Greece do not provide any courses related to renewable energy. To be more precise, the Faculty of Forestry and Natural Environment of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, as well as the forestry departments of the Technological Educational Institution of Thessaly (branch of Karditsa), the Technological Educational Institution of Sterea Ellada (branch of Karpenisi) and the Technological Educational Institution of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace (branch of Drama) do not include in their curricula any renewable energy-related courses. As observed, the Department of Forestry and Management of the Environment and Natural Resources of the Democritus University of Thrace is the only among the aforementioned environmental departments offering the highest number of renewable energy-related courses, but also courses on environmental education and communication. In this regard, it provided the most suitable context for the purposes of the present study.

As already mentioned, most research works have explored the public attitudes and acceptance of RES, whereas little research work has tried to understand the attitudes of university students towards renewable energy. In this paper, we examine explicitly the views on RES of students majoring in the Department of Forestry and Management of the Environment and Natural Resources and the study objectives are to 1) indicate whether forestry students support RES deployment, 2) examine attitudes to polluting energy producers, 3) discover students' feelings about energy shortage due to lignite exhaustion and 4) identify participants' level of environmental awareness. If positive attitudes to renewable energy are discovered, then it is possible to suggest that these students as future foresters will support the use and development of RES.

The expectation is that the students under scrutiny will express pronounced awareness and positive attitudes towards RES, as a result of attending courses related to both renewable energy and environmental education and communication. If the study findings confirm this expectation, similar research should be conducted to the other environmental departments to compare the attitudes and awareness levels of students who attend the aforementioned courses and students who do not. Based on such findings, the curricula of environmental departments could be improved and strategies aiming at enhancing awareness could be developed. However, it is not sufficient to examine only the environmental departments. That is, since experts from different fields are involved in the RES sector, students of various departments should have awareness about renewable energy in order to be able to support it. In addition, those developing the curricula should know the attitudes of students to RES and form them accordingly. Hence, similar studies should be conducted in other departments beside the environmental ones and especially in countries where renewable energy implementation is still limited.

The remaining paper is structured as follows. The second section reviews the main findings of the relevant literature in terms of students' attitudes to renewable energy. Then, the third section provides information on the methodology the researchers followed to perform the study and the fourth section describes the research findings. Afterwards, in the fifth section the findings are discussed, while in the last section conclusions are reached and policy implications are stated. Next, there is a section providing all references cited in this paper and finally in the Appendix the full version of the questionnaire used for the purposes of the study is included.