| NJIT
Poll: Potential Energy Crisis Hot On The Minds Of State Residents
NEWARK, July 17--The energy debate is heating up among many New Jersey residents. A survey recently conducted for New Jersey Institute of Technology found that more than half the residents polled believe the country, including New Jersey, is headed for an energy crisis. Adding more fuel to their concerns, almost 51 percent polled believe blackouts are likely this summer. The
survey found that 75 percent of those polled believe higher energy prices
are a problem, but at least those many indicated a willingness to reduce
consumption to lower costs. Residents, though, were cold when asked
to reach into their pockets, overwhelmingly opposing measures to raise
or pay more taxes to solve an energy crisis. New
Jersey residents have energy on their minds More Highlights
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Close to half (44%) of residents
polled say that they think the state is headed for an energy crisis.
A majority of residents, 51 percent, say it is likely that there
will be electricity shortages and blackouts in New Jersey this summer. Though the threatening consequences
of an energy crisis, such as blackouts, brownouts, lines for gasoline
and high oil and electricity prices, are real, respondents suspect that
the shortage has been fabricated. More than one in three, or about 35
percent think we are being told that there are shortages. ·
When the poll was conducted
from June 20-21, 2001 most people polled,
93 percent, said that gasoline prices had escalated. Nevertheless, most of them also said that
the While about three-quarters
of the residents believe
that gasoline prices would be a financial hardship for them and their
families, 75 percent of them said that they would
not change their summer vacation plans. ·
Most residents, 75 percent or more, say that
they would support measures to conserve energy. They would take shorter showers, put lights
on timers, use air conditioners less, and wash clothes in cold water.
Even 56 percent of them would air dry their clothing. ü The one thing a majority of
people are not willing to do is go to bed earlier.
Half of women, 49 percent, and even more men , 55 percent, say they are not willing to turn in early
for the sake of conservation. Residents support the idea
of increasing the required fuel efficiency of sport utility vehicles
or expanding high occupancy vehicle lanes to encourage carpooling, but
oppose the idea of lowering the speed limit and vehemently oppose any
increase in gasoline taxes. ü People especially oppose increasing
gasoline taxes to encourage fuel efficiency. Only 9 percent of them say a tax increase is excellent or good. ü A majority of them, 57 percent,
think that price controls on gasoline, electricity rates and oil prices
are excellent or good. Despite the larger trend to
resist measures that would inconvenience consumers, more than four in
ten residents say they would volunteer to be “browned out” from time
to time, in exchange for a lower rate. College educated New Jerseyans
are more likely to say that they’d take less-consistent service to get
the lower rate. · While more than half of the residents who responded to the poll say that they would support the construction of a new power generating plant in their county, when that power plant is a nuclear one, their support drops. This is the case, even though three out of four people say that nuclear power plants are just as safe or safer than they were 25 years ago. The poll was conducted among 400 New Jersey adults selected randomly from a list of residential phone numbers. The interviews, conducted in the state’s north, south and central region, was established by a quota and based on census population figures in New Jersey counties. The margin of error for this survey is ±4.9% on the overall sample. The margin of error on sub samples is greater. Sebastian
was the valedictorian of the Stevens Institute of Technology class of
1974 and a 1970 graduate of Wilton High School, Wilton, CT. His parent
Hubert and Ethel Sebastian remain residents of Wilton. Donald, his wife
Catherine, and daughter Caitlyn Ann live in Randolph. NJIT is a public research university enrolling over
8,200 bachelor's, master's and doctoral students in 80 degree programs
through its five colleges: Newark College of Engineering, New Jersey School
of Architecture, College of Science and Liberal Arts, the School of Management
and the Albert Dorman Honors College. Research initiatives include manufacturing,
microelectronics, multimedia, transportation, computer science, solar astrophysics,
environmental engineering and science, and architecture and building science.
According to Yahoo! Internet Life magazine rankings, NJIT has been
America's most wired public university for three consecutive years.
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