Influencing factors of public support for modern coal-fired power plant projects: An empirical study from China

With the development of clean coal technology, modern coal-fired power plants have achieved the similar emission standards as gas power plants. However, due to the impressions of high pollution and high emission in traditional coal-fired power plants, such projects are often opposed by local residents, which hinder the promotion of this technology. This manuscript aims to investigate public attitudes toward these projects and to analyze the influencing mechanisms of the factors of public support. The conceptual model was built with sense of place, trust and environmental attitude as the independent variables, benefit and cost perceptions as the mediating variables and public support as the dependent variable. The model was tested and modified by structural equation modelling. The results revealed that sense of place had a slight indirect impact (−0.043) on public support through benefit perception, whereas trust had a direct impact (0.332) on public support and indirect impacts (0.298) through benefit and cost perceptions. Environmental attitude had indirect impacts on public support through benefit perception (0.180) and cost perception (−0.115). In addition, policy suggestions on decision-making, project publicity and compensation strategy are proposed to enhance public support for similar projects.