1. Introduction
Sustainable development, which is conditioned by the limitation of natural resources and care for the environment, means that new challenges and perspectives in the field of energy security are sought. Among the activities indicated in the Kyoto Protocol, which aim, inter alia, to reduce CO
2 emissions, innovative technologies, in particular renewable energy, are promoted. This is particularly important as energy consumption continues to increase and awareness of environmental protection motivates the search for new alternative solutions [
1,
2,
3,
4]. High energy consumption is related to the development of technology, the automation and robotization of production, and the Internet. In many countries, power shortages are normal. Hence, the search for new solutions and new energy sources, particularly based on green energy, is urgent. It is necessary to rationally and rapidly possible undergo an energy transformation [
5].
Fluctuations in wind and solar energy, and insufficient capacity of transmission lines, are significant problems in the use of renewable energy. The most effective way to address the problem of renewable energy absorption is to efficiently convert, store, and reuse excess electricity [
6]. However, the success of hydrogen as an energy source requires that its advantages are recognized and accepted by citizens as safe and indispensable. Hydrogen is a clean energy source that can play an important role in the global energy transition. However, its origin is critical, and green hydrogen from renewable sources represents near-zero carbon production. Important synergies exist between accelerated deployment of renewable energy and hydrogen production and use. Hydrogen energy is a means of producing long-term and sustainable energy, and a method to help meet the needs of society.
According to the present renewable energy policies of European countries, hydrogen is at the forefront as an energy source for a sustainable (stable and ecological) energy system. Therefore, technologies for generating energy from hydrogen, and its transport and storage, face significant challenges that can be measured in terms of operational safety. From the perspective of users, it appears that safety and accessibility will determine the success or failure of the proposed solution.
Unfortunately, people’s attitudes also represent a significant challenge to the adoption renewable energy. There is a lack of understanding about how renewable energy is created, its advantages, and the definition of renewable. Renewable energy is also feared and treated as a necessary evil. It should be remembered that social barriers that arise when implementing modern technologies, including the development of hydrogen energy, are the hardest to overcome. Social resistance may cause a given investment to be suspended, delayed, or, worse, not realized at all. This type of barrier is the most difficult to overcome. Therefore, general environmental education and ecological awareness in this field is important. However, to identify the kind of social or ecological actions that are needed, the people’s knowledge level and attitudes relating to the topic under study should be determined.
Numerous interesting studies have been conducted on hydrogen energy technology and its use. However, most often these studies are conducted from a technical or economic perspective, and few studies exist from a social perspective. Nonetheless, the social perspective is important to ascertain people’s attitudes to this type of energy and break the resistance of ordinary people to these solutions. Therefore, the current authors decided to examine the attitude of ordinary people towards the use of hydrogen energy.
The main aim of the research was to determine how hydrogen energy, and in particular energy used in vehicles, is perceived by ordinary citizens. The article presents a short review of the literature, which aims to introduce the reader to the studied issues. An original questionnaire was used as a research tool to determine the opinions of the inhabitants of countries in which hydrogen energy is underutilized and where the infrastructure for hydrogen energy is underdeveloped. Respondents presented their attitude to ecology, and indicated their knowledge of the operation of hydrogen energy and the use of hydrogen fuel.
The authors wanted to present the understanding and approach of ordinary people to hydrogen energy and its use, and aimed to fill the identified research gap by developing a research tool in the form of a questionnaire to assess the attitudes of people toward hydrogen energy. This survey can be used in other countries, for example, or it can be the basis for extensive research on people’s opinions on the subject.
3. Materials and Methods
The main aim of the research was to determine how hydrogen energy, and in particular energy used in vehicles, is perceived by ordinary citizens. The study addressed people living in three countries of Eastern Europe (Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia). These are countries in which hydrogen energy is underutilized and the infrastructure for hydrogen energy is underdeveloped.
The design of the survey took into account the literature review, and in particular, similar studies conducted in other countries. An original questionnaire was conducted in the form of an internet survey from October 2019 to February 2020.
It was assumed that adult residents of three countries of Eastern Europe (Poland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia) would take part in the research. Due to the different size of the population of individual countries, it was assumed that the survey would be representative if at least 150 people from the Czech Republic and Slovakia and 200 from Poland would take part in it and that the surveys would be completed correctly (answers to all questions, all answers agree with the used scale). The authors did not fully influence the structure of the sample, because it was an online survey and it depended only on the willingness of respondents to participate in it.
The survey was divided into three parts: Natural environment (A), hydrogen energy (B), and use of hydrogen fuel (C). Each of these three parts contained 5 statements. The respondents were asked to indicate whether they agreed with a given statement. A five-point Likert scale was used to evaluate the statements, where 1 means I completely disagree and 5 means I completely agree. The sets of statements were composed to reveal weaknesses in the incentive of society to develop hydrogen energy, thus identifying the most difficult barriers to overcome. The statements in the survey were as follows:
- A.
Natural environment.
- A1.
I feel responsible for the natural environment.
- A2.
My actions have an impact on the environment.
- A3.
People should take care of the natural environment more and more due to its enormous damage.
- A4.
The use of renewable energy sources is a priority for a developed society.
- A5.
People have access to new technologies that have a positive impact on the environment.
- B.
Hydrogen energy.
- B1.
Hydrogen energy is clean energy.
- B2.
The use of hydrogen energy does not emit carbon dioxide.
- B3.
Hydrogen is a potentially great source of energy.
- B4.
Hydrogen energy is safe for people.
- B5.
The use of hydrogen energy has a positive impact on the natural environment.
- C.
Use of hydrogen fuel.
- C1.
There are hydrogen powered vehicles available in my country.
- C2.
The cost of producing hydrogen energy is high (compared to other types of energy).
- C3.
In my country, the infrastructure of hydrogen fuel stations is well-developed.
- C4.
The use of hydrogen fuel is safe.
- C5.
I am interested in the possibility of having a hydrogen fuel car.
The questions were structured in such a way that high scores mean that the respondent is pro-ecological (part A), and understands the operation of hydrogen energy (part B) and the use of hydrogen fuel (part C).
Additionally, the questionnaire contained a section to gather information about the basic characteristics of the respondents to identify the structure of people taking part in the study. A total of 766 people took part in the survey (247 from Poland, 223 from Czech Republic, and 199 from Slovakia).
The use of the five-point Likert scale allowed analysis of the survey results in terms of the reliability of the answers. For this analysis, the Cronbach Alpha and standardized Cronbach Alpha tests were used both for each group of questions and for all survey, later the results of the analysis were interpreted according to Hair et al. [
85]. It is assumed that a Cronbach Alpha index above the value of 0.7 means that the collected data are suitable for further analysis.
A scale analysis was performed to determine which grades were most often given by respondents. Then, the evaluation results were analyzed, i.e., basic statistics and percentages of individual evaluations were calculated.
4. Results and Discussion
As shown in the literature, the identification of areas for improvement is a key element in planning and implementing new projects. Numerous management tools exist that support the achievement of long-term goals based on actual state-of-the-art analysis [
72,
95,
96]. Thus, the authors attempted to identify the area (barrier) that should be overcome to make society feel positively about new energy technologies.
Initially, the completed questionnaires were verified. A total of 766 respondents took part in the survey. Not all of the questionnaires were completed correctly in their entirety, which resulted in 17 questionnaires being rejected. Ultimately, 749 questionnaires were further analyzed (
Table 1).
First, the structure of the respondents was analyzed (
Table 2). Percentages of individual responses were calculated. It can be seen that the structure of the respondents was varied, but some features were repeated. This could be due to an unusual survey topic, i.e., hydrogen energy. It is likely that a large number of people did not complete the survey precisely because the topic was difficult. However, this also indicates a low level of knowledge and awareness.
Regard the gender of the respondents, the structure was balanced with a slight majority of women respondents. Most respondents were from Poland. People from 21 to 70 years of age participated in the study, and were most often aged 41–50. Most of the respondents were working. The survey covered respondents with secondary or higher education, which may be related to the subject of the survey. Most often, the respondents came from large cities of over 300,000 residents.
The results of the main part of the survey were analyzed. First, the number of individual ratings for each statement was calculated. On the basis of these data, an analysis of the correlation between individual statements was carried out, taking into account the grades awarded (
Table 3). The matrix of the determined correlations was used in the next step to calculate the standardized Cronbach Alpha.
The mean correlation between the questions was 0.27. It can be concluded that the dependence is clear, but this value indicates a low correlation. This means that, on average, there is only a small correlation between the individual statements. The highest correlation coefficient was obtained for statements B1 and B2, i.e., “Hydrogen energy is clean energy” and “The use of hydrogen energy does not emit carbon dioxide”, as expected. The smallest (almost zero) correlation was found in the case of statements A3 and C5, i.e., “People should take care of the natural environment more and more due to its enormous damage” and “I am interested in the possibility of having a hydrogen fuel car”, which indicates the absence of any dependencies.
The Cronbach Alpha and standardized Cronbach Alpha coefficients were used to assess the reliability of the survey. These coefficients were calculated both for the entire survey and for its individual parts (
Table 4). In the case of the overall study and parts A and B, the results were in the range (0.8, 0.9), which indicates a very good strength of association; in the case of part 3, the result was lower, within the range (0.7, 0.8), i.e., good strength of association. However, in line with the earlier assumptions, these results prove the reliability of the study; therefore the study results were subjected to further analysis.
The analysis of the obtained results began with the scale statistics.
Table 5 provides information on the mean, variance, and standard deviation of the scale composed of all five analyzed items. It can be noted that the adopted scale takes values ranging from 5 (if the respondent chose the lowest possible value for all items, i.e., 1) to 75 (if the respondent chose 5 for all values). The mean of 50.2444 on this scale appears to be relatively high (i.e., approx. 2/3 of the whole scale) and indicates a positive attitude of the respondents to environmental protection and hydrogen energy.
Then, the mean and standard deviation were calculated for the scores of individual questions and for each group of questions (
Table 6).
From the analysis of the results for individual groups of statements, it can be seen that group A was rated the highest (mean 3.96), i.e., the respondents agreed, although not completely, with these statements. This is a group related to environmental protection, which is often discussed in public forums. In addition, “being eco” has recently become fashionable, which is why these results are not surprising. The highest standard deviation was also noted for this group of statements, which indicates the ratings in this group differed the most.
The lowest mean was obtained for group C (mean 2.58), which indicates the respondents either disagree or are indifferent to the statements. This group deals with the use of hydrogen fuel. The lowest scores in this group indicate that there is very little knowledge and awareness in society about the benefits of using energy from hydrogen. This proves that the development and expansion of hydrogen technologies must be strongly supported by actions promoting not only ecology but, more importantly, technology. It should be noted that society has a high degree of access to information and requires clean, readable data (which is also a technological factor). This data can be used to help convince the public and improve their perception in terms of safety and accessibility
When analyzing individual questions, it can be noted that the following questions were rated the highest: A3 (People should take care of the natural environment more and more due to its enormous damage) and A4 (The use of renewable energy sources is a priority for a developed society). In both cases, the average was over 4, which indicates the respondents agree with these statements. These are important statements because respondents know that they need to care for the environment and, therefore, use renewable energy sources. This indicates that society has, to some extent, overcome a mental barrier regarding the issue of ecological sustainability. Assessing the remaining statements from group A, it can be said that the respondents agreed with them, although their opinion partially shifted towards indifference.
In group B, the average rating for question B4 (Hydrogen energy is safe for humans) was 2.56, which indicates the respondents were not entirely sure of their answer: Indifference or disagree. In the remaining cases in this group, responses indicated a fluctuation between indifference and agreement with the statement. This result proves that the public knows the benefits of using energy from hydrogen, but feels anxious and uncertain about its safety. The response fluctuations may also result from a two-fold understanding of safety; safety in this category may refer to the safety of technical conditions and safety of the access to the energy source.
The worst assessment was for the statement C3 (i.e., In my country the infrastructure of hydrogen fuel stations is well-developed) achieved an average question score of 1.44, i.e., the respondents did not agree with the statement and often completely disagreed. Interestingly, on the basis of the analysis of the availability of charging stations, it can be concluded that in the countries covered by the study such stations exist, but their number is very low. Charging stations are usually located along major transit roads and in large cities.
When analyzing the results for the statement C5 (I am interested in the possibility of having a hydrogen fuel car), the respondents were on average indifferent. By comparison, responses to the other statements in this group fluctuated between disagreement and indifference. This is expected; if respondents believe that the country has a lack of charging station infrastructure, the public will not be interested in this type of car.
Next, the percentages of the grades assigned to individual statements were calculated, which allowed analysis of the structure of the answers (
Table 7).
In the analysis of the ratings of 5, i.e., cases in which the respondents completely agree with a given statement, it can be noted that the highest share of this rating was recorded for the statements A1 (I feel responsible for the natural environment) and A3 (People should take care of the natural environment more and more due to its enormous damage). This indicates the high potential of society to assimilate technologies using renewable energy in their lives.
The rating of 4 (I agree) was dominant for A5 (People have access to new technologies that have a positive impact on the environment). Agreement with the statement (albeit uncertain) may indicate that, in fact, the public does have access to these technologies, but may not always use them. Accessibility in this area may be strongly conditioned by an economic barrier, such as a lack of financial support from the state in the form of subsidies, discounts, or financial incentives
A rating of 3 (neutral; neither yes nor no) prevailed for the statements B4 (Hydrogen energy is safe for people), B3 (Hydrogen is potentially great source of energy), and B5 (The use of hydrogen energy has a positive impact on the natural environment). This indifference shown by the respondents indicates a lack knowledge regarding the technology associated with obtaining energy from hydrogen, and the safety and benefits of using this energy. This confirms earlier observations that society needs clear data on the hydrogen technology and benefits.
When analyzing the rating of 2 (I disagree), no notable observation can be made of this rating. It can only be noted that statements C1 (There are hydrogen powered vehicles available in my country), C2 (The cost of producing hydrogen energy is high (compared to other types of energy)), and C4 (The use of hydrogen fuel is safe) accounted for over 20% of these answers. However, this finding is not significant and does not significantly affect the obtained results.
Rating 1 (I completely disagree) was highly dominant for the C3 statement (In my country, the infrastructure of hydrogen filling stations is well-developed). This is the question with the lowest average rating. It can be concluded that the respondents completely disagree with this statement, and the lack of their confirmation does not indicate a genuine lack of charging infrastructure, but rather the respondents’ ignorance in this regard due to lack of interest.
Negative attitudes toward hydrogen energy can be an important barrier in its development in numerous countries, and are an element of social barriers, which were shown in
Figure 1. As indicated by part B of the presented survey, particularly question B4, respondents are not sure that hydrogen energy is a safe energy source, and thus do not fully accept this type of energy. This is probably related to the fact that, in the surveyed countries, hydrogen energy receives little attention. Due to the low level of knowledge about hydrogen energy among the inhabitants, the respondents are afraid of its use. This is exacerbated by people’s broader fears of the new and the unknown.
Therefore, as shown in
Figure 1, public awareness of this subject should be raised through various social campaigns, TV programs, or articles in the press that show the benefits of using green energy, in particular hydrogen energy. Clearly, it is impossible to convince all of society. However, convincing a proportion of society can help to overcome the barriers to implementing hydrogen energy in a given country.
5. Conclusions
The main aim of this research was to identify areas that require improvement from the perspective of the attitudes of respondents towards new technologies for obtaining energy from hydrogen. Based on the presented research results, the most important findings are as follows:
Even in countries in which modern energy technologies are not popular, society is motivated to introduce changes that will care for the environment; that is, awareness of the constant destruction of the environment is at a high level.
The respondents are not convinced that an adequate level of safety exists for energy derived from hydrogen, where safety can be understood to be technical and access stability (i.e., availability). Knowledge about hydrogen as an energy source, and its production safety and storage methods, is very low.
The respondents believe that both hydrogen technologies and hydrogen-powered cars are not available to them. A belief exists that hydrogen cars are not available, the charging infrastructure is poorly developed, and that there are no overall economic benefits. Thus, the level of preparation of countries for intensive hydrogen energy development is low.
The presented survey and its results helped fill the research gap mentioned in the introduction. It can be a useful tool for determining the level of social barriers related to respondents’ fear and lack of knowledge about hydrogen energy. This barrier can be overcome with the help of various social companies that can convince people that hydrogen energy is safe and offers benefits within their country.
The presented research has certain limitations. Although the design of the questionnaire was based on a literature review, it was created for the purposes of this study, and may have been influenced by the subjectivity of the authors. The survey presented results relating to people’s attitudes from a social perspective. Important questions about hydrogen energy may have been omitted, and others that were included may have been unnecessary, particularly with regard to the engineering perspective. However, it should be emphasized that this questionnaire was aimed at ordinary people who do not have specialist knowledge related to the research topic, and may have different levels of education. Therefore, this survey was adapted in terms of language and content to the respondents.
The survey topic was not popular. People often complete surveys on product quality, customer service, product satisfaction, etc., relating to everyday matters, in one word. It should be remembered that the subject of the survey presented in the paper was technical, and concerned hydrogen energy, which is not yet well known or popular. In addition, the sample was not large enough, which was likely because only a small number of people were willing to participate in this research due to the nature of the subject.
The study was conducted from a social rather than a technical perspective. The authors were interested in the opinion, behavior, and attitude of the respondents, and the engineering solutions yet to be solved by experts in the hydrogen energy industry.
The survey was made available via different social media platforms and the closest professional contacts of the authors. This may have had an impact on the structure of the respondents themselves, and thus on their answers. In particular, the research focused on respondents from three different countries, including the country of the authors. The authors believe that future studies should include samples from a diverse demographic population. The last limitation relates to respondents’ origins. As mentioned previously, respondents were from three neighboring countries of Eastern Europe. However, this opens opportunities for future research to conduct the study in other European countries.
The research will be continued and extended to other countries, and the results will be compared. The aim of this research is to interest the respondents in hydrogen energy. The authors think that participation in the survey may cause respondents to look for information on the subject. This would be regarded as a significant achievement for the authors, but, more importantly, for the natural environment. We also plan to use different statistical methods to more comprehensively analyze the data from different perspectives and enhance the relevant case study, which will also improve the accuracy and scientific conclusions.