Proposal of Environmental Impact Assessment Index considering Public Acceptance ‒Application to Power Generation Technologies‒

Abstract

Public acceptance is one of the most important issues when considering the sustainability of anthropogenic systems. In order to develop future energy systems, it is necessary to take into account the balance of environmental impact, economical feasibility, and public acceptance. Based on the existing indices for inclusive environmental impacts, such as the Inclusive Impact Index (Triple I) and the emergy, the present work proposes new indices: Triple I and Triple I_emergy which can evaluate public acceptance together with economical and environmental aspects simultaneously. Here, we applied these indices to several power generation technologies. To quantify the expectation and uneasiness of the public, we conducted a questionnaire survey about the selected eight power generation technologies. However, the survey respondents were under- and postgraduates only and this limits this survey to a preliminary study. The conjoint analysis reveals the marginal rate of allowance to compensate (MRAC), which we coined the calculated values instead of calling the marginal willingness to pay (MWTP), in each unit of currency, ecological footprint, or emergy for six attributes that are considered to affect public acceptance. Using the MRAC, Triple I and Triple I_emergy of the power generation technologies are calculated. Eventually, it is conjectured that, if the analysis of the questionnaire is accurate enough, the results can be used to evaluate the sustainability of the technologies.