Assessment of the Future Role of Some Energy Sources by Higher Education Students in Hungary

Abstract

Serving the ever-increasing energy demand of the world by preventing the excessive deterioration of the environment requires the continuous development of energy technologies. Both renewable and nuclear power are reasonable alternatives to fossil sources. Beyond the engineering and economic issues, the social acceptance of the technologies is an essential factor. Recent literature pays growing attention to learning students' attitudes to renewable energy and sustainability since they are the future users and the decision-makers. Targeted actions in the field need thorough investigations about the opinions, attitudes, and knowledge level of the new generations. This paper contributes to a better understanding of higher education students' approaches to renewable and nuclear energy in Hungary by a voluntary online survey on evaluation and ranking the energy sources. The research sample includes 328 business, engineering, and state science students from various Hungarian universities. The results show the respondents are optimistic about favorable future changes in the utilization of renewable energies, but the opinions are scattered. Using the energy sources, sparingly seems to be more acceptable by the respondents than making financial sacrifices for a greener solution. The results of the pairwise comparison pointed out that solar power and wind power are considered decisive and acceptable sources. There is a general distrust of nuclear energy among the respondents. The analysis did not find significant differences between the responses of students from different faculties. The evaluations confirm a positive approach to sustainability and the particular emphasis on solar power. The result shows the need for knowledge formation that the assessment of the future role is not in line with the professional opinion and the national strategy