Poll: Biofuels Top Alt Energy Choice

Biofuels and solar energy topped respondents’ choices in a UPI-Zogby International poll regarding alternative energy sources in the United States.

A total of 6,882 U.S. residents were asked in a Jan. 16-18 Zogby interactive poll to select which alternative energy source would be most useful in the future.

Forty-nine percent of respondents chose either ethanol/biomass (26.7 percent) or solar power (22.3 percent). Hydroelectric came in at 10.5 percent, followed by wind power (9.9 percent) and thermal (2.3 percent).

Ethanol has grabbed a lot of attention since U.S. President George Bush’s State of the Union speech last year when he spoke the country’s addiction to oil. Ethanol uses plant growth — usually grains but often sugar — and is generally blended with petroleum products. Biomass energy utilizes the methane gas produced by decomposing matter, burning the gas to produce electricity.

The poll listed ethanol/biomass as most likely, in the opinion of participants, to replace fossil fuels, with 39.8 percent giving that answer, 10.8 saying solar energy and 10.6 hydroelectric.

Still, there isn’t much hope for weaning the United States off oil: 61.1 percent of those asked said less than 25 percent of current fossil fuel energy use would be replaced by renewable energy sources in 10 years.

The data have a margin of error of 1.2 percentage points.