Indiana University
To conduct public perception surveys and public finance research on the siting of energy infrastructure
There are few, if any, reputable studies examining the public perception and public finance dimensions associated with the siting of energy infrastructure, which includes projects such as transmission lines, oil and natural gas pipelines, natural gas export terminals, large-scale wind and solar facilities, and other large power plants. The studies that have been conducted have tended to focus on a single energy infrastructure project instead of looking across multiple projects simultaneously and have asked about hypothetical energy infrastructure developments instead of real-world examples. This grant funds a team led by David Konisky at Indiana University to conduct highly localized public opinion surveys related to 15 energy infrastructure projects that are currently in the planning stages across seven populous states. In addition to surveying local residents, the team will field complementary national surveys that will examine how public perceptions differ across infrastructure types. Finally, the team will develop a series of local public finance case studies laying out the likely economic impacts of a subset of these infrastructure projects, drawing on information from permit applications, siting and development plans, evidence from public hearings, and interviews with local officials and other stakeholders. All of the survey data, codebooks, and finance analysis will be publicly released at the end of the project, with the material to be archived at Harvard’s Dataverse.