DO WEST VIRGINIA’S YOUNG PEOPLE STILL IDENTIFY WITH COAL COUNTRY? A CASE STUDY OF UNDERGRADUATES’ ATTITUDES ON ENERGY POLICY

This report serves as the culmination of the researcher’s time in the Energy Policy and Climate (EPC) program and growth in understanding the intersection of energy technologies, economics, policy, and public attitudes. Given the pressing need for energy decarbonization to address anthropogenic climate change, it is imperative policy makers and renewable energy advocates better understand the complex factors that shape attitudes towards energy technologies and policy. This is especially true given the increased polarization around climate and energy policy that has been discussed in many of the researcher’s EPC courses. To that end, this report sought to analyze attitudes towards energy policy amongst undergraduates in West Virginia and how recent economic, political, and fossil fuel industry communication trends shape these views using a mixed-method case study. Given the steady decline in coal jobs within Coal Country, the time is ripe to better understand whether this decrease has increased pro-renewable attitudes amongst those who will soon be the state’s business and political leaders. This report’s findings indicate that such shifts in attitudes have not occurred although the limited survey sample size prevents the drawing of statistically significant conclusions. Rather than being shaped by coal industry economic trends, political ideology was found to more likely shape energy policy attitudes. Furthermore, this study analyzed the communication strategies used by the coal industry to perpetuate pro-coal attitudes in West Virginia. It was found that the Friends of Coal, a pro-coal advocacy group, continues to attack renewable energy resources as costly, unreliable, and above all, unnecessary. Thus, using West Virginia as a case study, this research highlights the challenges that renewable energy advocates and policy makers face in shaping pro-renewable energy attitudes within communities that have historically been economically-tied to fossil fuel production and increasingly vote for pro-coal candidates, even amongst younger residents