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Article

Public Perception of the Use of Woody Biomass for Energy Purposes in the Evaluation of Content and Information Management on the Internet

by
Kamila Słupińska
1,
Marek Wieruszewski
2,*,
Piotr Szczypa
3,
Anna Kożuch
4 and
Krzysztof Adamowicz
5
1
WEFiZ, Institute of Management, University of Szczecin, Adama Mickiewicza 64, 71-101 Szczecin, Poland
2
Department Mechanical Wood Technology, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Wojska Polskiego 28, 60-637 Poznan, Poland
3
The College of Economics and Social Sciences, Warsaw University of Technology, 00-661 Warszawa, Poland
4
Department of Forest Management, Geomatics and Forest Economics, University of Agriculture in Krakow, Avenue 29, Listopada 46, 31-425 Krakow, Poland
5
Department of Forestry Economics and Technology, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Poznań University of Life Sciences, Wojska Polskiego 28, 60-637 Poznan, Poland
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Energies 2022, 15(19), 6888; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15196888
Submission received: 2 September 2022 / Revised: 18 September 2022 / Accepted: 19 September 2022 / Published: 20 September 2022
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Optimal Investment Analysis of Renewable Energy)
Browse Figure
Versions Notes

Abstract

:
The purpose of this study was to provide an overview of the public perception of the increase in forest biomass production, particularly in Poland, in the context of global and European Union (EU) climate and energy policy directions. Trends regarding the justification of biomass production in the EU and the world were also analyzed. The study compared the results of public sentiment surveys concerning the use of biomass in Poland as a member state of the European Union. The results are presented in tabular and graphical form. Data were obtained from analyses of social websites, study reports, and information social media in Poland. This study shows an increase in the negative perception of biomass use nationally and globally. It can be concluded that the increasing trend of forest biomass extraction resulted from the growing demand for green energy sources. Changes in European Union policy affected the popularization of biomass production worldwide as a result of growing energy demand. The use of renewable energy sources is necessary to reduce environmental degradation and secure society’s growing energy needs. It is necessary to increase the flow of information about the importance of forest biomass for the environmental aspects of society in order to gain acceptance of the EU’s promoted direction of stable renewable energy.

1. Introduction

In 1997, the European Council and the European Parliament adopted rules increasing the share of renewable energy sources (RESs) in gross inland energy consumption in the EU. In 2007, the EU proposed an integrated energy and climate package. In addition, the EU established the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) in 2009 to promote renewable energy sources. As a result, the EU set a target of 20% RES growth by 2020 compared to 1990, of which 10% is allocated for biofuels [1]. Energy security is an important issue not only for countries and regions but also for consumers [2].
Pollution problems can be solved through renewable energy sources. The data [3] confirmed that renewable energy sources accounted for 6% in 1997 and increased to 17.5% of energy consumption in the European Union in 2018 [4]. Various forms of biomass are a major source of renewable energy and are mainly produced in rural areas and forests. This also positively affects the economic situation of farmers and forest owners [5]. Woody biomass is the largest potential source of energy worldwide, including in Poland [6].
Wood is the main source of biomass. Biomass can be a product coming from forest production and the timber industry. Biomass is defined in the literature as all organic matter that is biodegradable, including waste products from agriculture and other sources [7,8].
Energy security is an important issue that determines the availability of energy at any time and in various forms. It can be internal or external [9,10], and energy can be produced directly from forest harvests [11].
Biomass is the main source of renewable energy used to produce heat and electricity [12]. Biomass is processed into various products such as pellets and briquettes and can be transported worldwide [13,14,15].
The EU’s environmental policy addresses the diversity of environmental problems in individual regions of the European Union [16]. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change entered into force on 21 March 1994 (UNFCCC) forcing governments to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is becoming a priority issue [17]. Policies promoting the use of RESs can reduce climate pollution [18,19,20].
In August 2009, a round of international climate talks was held in Bonn, Germany. It concerned the Convention on Climate Change, referring to the Kyoto agreement [21,22]. The result was the adoption of the 2015 Paris Agreement in support of renewable energy development, not only in the EU but also globally [23]. Legal standards play a key role in energy security. Energy policy is governed by numerous documents and laws [24]. Public sentiment regarding the use of biomass for energy purposes often differs from the assumptions that guarantee the energy security of EU countries. It is reasonable to verify the level of public awareness in the form of a criterion for assessing the qualitative emotions aroused by the management of woody biomass.
Mass media serves as an intermediary between scientists, politicians, industry, and the public by translating information for social needs [25,26]. According to researchers, for citizens, knowledge about science comes largely from mass media rather than from scientific publications or direct use of scientific knowledge [27]. The use of biofuels is also receiving increasing attention in the mass media zone. In an era of fossil fuel reduction, it is cited as a strategy for mitigating climate change. Previous studies analyzing media reports on biomass have attempted to determine how they are perceived and what opportunities lie in combining them to mitigate climate change. These analyses show that biomasses are perceived by the media as beneficial to energy development, although they are not often mentioned in conjunction with forest biomass management. The media mentions talk about their importance in mitigating climate change and as an alternative to fossil fuels, however, in the online space opinions are strongly divided [28,29].
The purpose of the study was to present changes in the public perception of solid biomass, especially forestry biomass, use in Poland in the context of global and European environmental policy. To achieve this purpose, it was necessary to answer the questions of what the potential for the flow of information about the importance of renewable energy is in Poland and the EU according to the legal status of renewable sources in Poland and worldwide.

2. Materials and Methods

The qualitative content analysis method was adopted in the study. Analyzing the literature [30,31,32,33] and especially the study by Szczepaniak [34], which carried out a critical evaluation of the research methodologies of other authors used to date, the authors decided to adopt the basis of the proposed study structure. Material was prepared for analysis by adding supplementary information referring to online sources. In addition, we referred to the methods identified by Corsley [35] and the educational platform for innovative population health methods and the social, behavioral, and biological sciences [35], in which the authors also point to the need to define the nature of qualitative content analysis by distinguishing two aspects of them—conceptual and relational. For the former, it is necessary to assume what levels of implication one wants to include in one’s deductive or inductive codes. For the latter, it is necessary to identify relationships between concepts. This analysis starts with a conceptual analysis, in which it is selected for study. There are three subcategories of relational analysis: affect extraction, which involves an emotional evaluation of the concepts in the text; proximity analysis, which extracts groups of related, co-occurring concepts that suggest an overall meaning; and cognitive mapping, which aims to create a model of the overall meaning of the text, such as a graphic map showing relationships between concepts [36].
In the analyzed article, the authors initially focused on the situation in Poland, due to the development of social knowledge about biomass. Consideration was given to the current situation of social development of communication in the area of Internet mass media, in which very intensive communication about the investigated topic of biomass is disseminated. The analyses also included foreign-language reports, which were positioned to be among the most visited.
The authors assumed that the analysis would be relational as it explores the relationships of the content and its emotional nature, rather than its conceptual meaning itself. In addition, the meaning of texts and their categories was linked based on authors’ experience and the theoretical analysis related to the issue of woody biomass.
The indicated profiles of public attitudes toward woody biomass as a renewable energy source were ranked as positive, negative, or neutral.
The method specified by Szczepaniak [6] presupposes a five-step process [37], to which the authors added their own additions. An elaborate outline of the research procedure is presented below:
(a)
Selection and justification of the study source;
(b)
Selection of study material including a description of how the material to be analyzed was selected;
(c)
Identification of the purpose of the study and research hypotheses;
(d)
Analysis of texts on identified websites and social media channels;
(e)
Creation of a matrix with categorization key;
(f)
Definition of categories in the key;
(g)
Identification of key quotations in the table.
A reference to each stage is provided below:
Stage 1: The Internet was adopted as research material, and three groups of channels were used and their content was analyzed—information and science websites, online reports, and information social media.
Stage 2: “Woody biomass” was adopted as the search term for each of the study groups.
The first study group consisted of the first 10 positioned information and science websites (A) in the Google Chrome search engine for the search term “woody biomass”. Websites that were commercial offers (advertisements) for selected products in the “woody biomass” group were not included in the study, except for those with mostly scientific, informative content.
The second group (D) consisted of study reports searched by the search term “woody biomass”. Before choosing the right keyword, which was” woody biomass”, the authors also analyzed other related words such as the accepted word “biomass”, “RES”, which resulted in an overly divergent approach to the topic, much of it advertising or educational content explaining the meaning of the terms. However, this is a valid indication, which the authors will use for the already in-depth quantitative analysis. This study focused on searching for the same content in different online sources based on the material’s popularity index. If a webpage containing the same report was displayed, the authors went to the next page. As with the first group, the first 10 webpages positioned after entering the search term “woody biomass” or “biomass” in the Google Chrome search engine were selected. Repetitions and commercial offer pages were omitted.
The third group consisted of two selected social media platforms—Twitter (C) and Facebook (D). Their selection was dictated by statistics on the evaluation of these channels as one of the main sources of information, where content targeted at a larger group of users, in the form of text or text and graphics, is published [37]. Facebook gathers users in a very diverse age group through social organizations, public organizations, and private company profiles. For Twitter, these are usually opinion-forming accounts—media, politicians, journalists, or influencers.
For social media, the search term was also “woody biomass”. In addition, in the case of Twitter, the analysis included the TOP category; in the case of Facebook, we analyzed active profiles with no less than 20 members, in Polish, and not profiles with only advertising information. Before selecting the relevant profiles for analysis, a detailed review of them was conducted before identifying the leading ones, with content relevant to the topic under analysis.
Stage 3: The aim of the study was to assess emotional overtones in online information messages about woody biomass. This was achieved by analyzing various sources of online communication. This made it possible to perform a broader assessment of the extent to which constructed opinions can shape views within different audiences. The content was also assessed from the point of view of its overtones and the main opinions for and against woody biomass.
The main hypothesis (Hg) was that online opinion on woody biomass is significantly more likely to be formed negatively, and the two supporting hypotheses were as follows:
Hp1: More negative opinions are found on social media than in other forms of online information.
Hp2: Negative information is disseminated much more actively to different audiences using various forms of information communication on the Internet.
Stage 4: The texts on the identified websites and social media channels were analyzed by reading the selected content and then assessing its emotional overtones, expressed in terms of attitudes toward the analyzed topic.
Stages 5–7: The key categories were determined based on the first analysis of the content of the material. The matrix included the title of the study/article/post and the attitude toward woody biomass as a renewable energy source expressed as one of three categories, i.e., positive, negative, neutral. This scale allowed the overall assessment of the analyzed content to be achieved. Citations and/or abstracts of the material were added as part of the analyses. For the clarity of the results and a better comparative analysis, the citations were added directly to the matrix. The author was also included, which was important from the point of view of the generally known opinions expressed by certain individuals/institutions as confirmation or denial of the existing nature of the statements.

3. Results

The summaries of the empirical study are presented in Table 1, Table 2, Table 3 and Table 4 further on in the publication. Four spheres of influence were distinguished according to the methodology: A: Information and science websites; B: Study reports; C: Social media 1: Twitter; and D: Social media 2: Facebook.
Half of the surveyed websites (Table 1) containing a publication dedicated to woody biomass had positive overtones in relation to RESs, slightly fewer had negative overtones, and there were also two neutral ones. The positive perception of woody biomass as an RES was mainly due to the following arguments:
  • The use of “forest residues”, which are not suitable for production purposes;
  • The use of production waste, e.g., from the furniture industry, sawmills;
  • “Green” alternative to move away from energy sources coming from fossil fuels for both individual households and heat and power plants/power plants.
The negative tone of the publications was mainly due to the duplication (further transmission) of information and negative arguments from the selected reports. Of particular relevance and enormous impact is the report “Forests to Burn. The Real Cost of Bioenergy” published by Pracownia na rzecz Wszystkich Istot, to which the author refers. It negates the recognition of woody biomass as an RES and environmentally friendly energy source, mainly due to CO2 emissions and the inappropriate direction of the use of wood, “the production of which takes about 80–110 years and the combustion process a few minutes”. The neutral texts carried a science-based message with information on types of woody biomass, its production and use.
Further verification of public attitudes to the use of biomass as energy comes from references to content from reports focusing directly on woody biomass (Table 2).
The analyzed reports and their content are significantly negative in nature, expressed through references to the attitude of the public toward the use of biomass, referring to concerns about the negative impact of the “mass cultivation of biomass crops”. Damage caused by combustion, which affects the climate and raises CO2 emissions, was also pointed out. Neutral reports present facts by referring to the current situation and recommendations of the country, without explicitly presenting an emotional attitude toward the analyzed topic. The group of neutral reports presents both negative and positive positions.
Social media were analyzed as another channel of information flow, with the results shown in Table 3 and Table 4.
In the case of social media, statements were both positive and negative, with a slight predominance of the latter (Figure 1). It should be noted, however, that, in the case of positive statements, these came from, among others, biomass traders, so they were characterized by verbal persuasion. This means that there are doubts as to the content being sufficiently objective. It is worth noting that the comments that appeared next to their profiles they negated the published material.
The rho-Spearman correlation analysis of the surveyed social media indicators showed a medium level of significance for the negative impact of the message on the effect of woody biomass for both information and science websites (A) and Twitter (C). At the same time, negative messages expressed in study reports (B) and on Facebook (D) were significant. This demonstrates the overall negative public attitude toward the presented trend of harvesting woody biomass for energy purposes.
The very headings of the published materials are very important: “Biomasa śmierci. Zobacz dlaczego” (“Biomass is death. See why”) or “Lasy do spalenia” (“Forests to burn”). Auto-illusion was also applied: “Właśnie testują przeróżne możliwości na próbie 50 tys. budynków. Lasów mają tylko 9% więc z biomasą drzewną nie poszaleją” (“They are testing various possibilities on a sample of 50,000 buildings. They only have 9% of forests, so they will not go wild with woody biomass”). Positive titles also accounted for the negative effect on biomass: “Świetna wiadomość z Holandii. Państwo w trybie natychmiastowym wstrzymuje nowe dotacje dla biomasy drzewnej, wykorzystywanej zwłaszcza w ciepłowniach, a biopaliwa mają być pozyskiwane na zasadach zrównoważonego rozwoju” (“Great news from the Netherlands. The state is immediately stopping new subsidies for woody biomass, used especially in heat plants, and biofuels are to be sourced on a sustainable basis”).

4. Discussion

A regional and global social network of online information, including social media, study reports, and information websites, mainly addresses action against climate change. The Internet is dominated by information on the impact of the use of woody biomass on the energy area zone, with coverage devoted to negative climate change. Information from online news sources attempts to tackle a number of negative issues concerning population growth, increasing communication requirements, and energy needs, while taking into account the reduction of CO2 emissions [55,56].
The findings confirm the impact of the selected social media representatives, including sessions on raising awareness of climate change issues, as well as sharing examples of good practice, with particular emphasis on specific environmental actions. Their proper management of information on the Internet through complementary content and where reports or messages were posted made their content much more visible to web users.
The main conclusions of the study highlighted the importance of pedagogy and the need for effective communication about the issues of climate change, which are often complex, and the interaction of the public in terms of using biomass as a stable energy source. Participants in the studies highlighted the need to link environmental issues with energy concerns—from forest resource protection and nature conservation in the broadest sense to energy security and CO2 reduction—to make them more comprehensible as a function of sustainable development [57,58,59,60].
EU member states and other European countries should promote the development of local and subregional approaches, in particular, by developing the structure of conveying information targeted at the local community in the zone of information on the importance of biomass for the region’s energy security [61,62,63,64,65].
In underdeveloped regions of Europe, energy is traditionally generated from fossil fuel power plants, despite the presence of local renewable energy sources. This tends to generate excessive energy costs for individual consumers and local businesses, combined with high carbon dioxide emissions. An international cooperation project aims to work on a problem common to all countries by promoting sustainable energy planning for the European and global community. Training programmers at the local, national, and international level can trigger the process of increasing public awareness of the importance of rational biomass use. The main idea behind the activities of European organizations is to formulate a sustainable energy strategy [66,67,68,69,70].
The studies to date have succeeded in raising awareness of the impact of woody biomass use in terms of energy efficiency and associated economic benefits, environmental benefits, and employment opportunities on the participating islands. This is an example of a good practice that can inspire other societies that depend on inefficient energy sources to use biomass for energy purposes [71,72,73,74].

5. Conclusions

The content analysis made it possible to draw conclusions to verify the research objective.
The results presented in this study support the established main hypothesis: “Online opinion on woody biomass is significantly more likely to be formed negatively”.
As far as the first supporting hypothesis is concerned, it cannot be unambiguously assumed that more negative opinions are found on social media than in other forms of online information. The available reports expressed a negative opinion of biomass use much more frequently. However, it should be borne in mind that, in the case of social media, positive messages were negatively commented on.
The other supporting hypothesis can be considered confirmed because negative information is much more actively disseminated.
The same negative material was cited more frequently across different online social media channels. A similar trend was observed for the websites of organizations opposed to the use of biomass, which were quoted by other social network users through their online activity. This demonstrates the use of effective multichannel communication organization, which provides a greater range of impact.
The research carried out allowed us to analyze the problem and identify the right direction for further research focused on the views of the parties and its argumentative basis. In addition, the analysis of the content made it possible to identify the appropriate research group, i.e., the representatives of the views presented, and the means of reaching them, i.e., social media. A barrier to reaching the studied group may be insufficient knowledge on the part of the person operating the profile. Hence, it will be necessary to initially assess their knowledge through a preliminary interview.
In addition, the study provided a direction for public awareness analyses based on social media surveys. The authors intend to extend the scope of the research to include the evaluation of social opinion formation in a behavioral context across different communication channels within different audience segments, taking into account, e.g., age, gender, or place of residence.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, K.S. and P.S.; methodology, K.S.; software, M.W.; validation, K.A., M.W. and A.K.; formal analysis, K.S.; investigation, M.W.; resources, K.S.; data curation, A.K.; writing—original draft preparation, K.S.; writing—review and editing, P.S.; visualization, M.W.; supervision, K.A.; project administration, P.S.; and funding acquisition, K.A. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

The publication was co-financed within the framework of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education program “Regional Initiative Excellence” in the years 2019–2022, Project No. 005/RID/2018/19.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

The data are contained within the article.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Energies 15 06888 g001 550
Figure 1. Attitudes toward woody biomass as a renewable energy source on social media (A: Information and science websites; B: Study reports; C: Social media 1: Twitter; D: Social media 2: Facebook).
Figure 1. Attitudes toward woody biomass as a renewable energy source on social media (A: Information and science websites; B: Study reports; C: Social media 1: Twitter; D: Social media 2: Facebook).
Energies 15 06888 g001
Table
Table 1. Information and science websites (A) searched by the search term “woody biomass” [38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47].
Table 1. Information and science websites (A) searched by the search term “woody biomass” [38,39,40,41,42,43,44,45,46,47].
Name of the WebsiteAttitudes toward Woody Biomass as a Renewable Energy Source
PositiveNegativeNeutral
Rynek inwestycji [38]--1
Tauron [39]--1
Bizblog [40]-1-
Wyborcza.pl [41]1--
Nadleśnictwo Żednia [42]1--
Castorama [43]1--
Świat OZE [44]1--
Magazyn Biomasa [45]1--
Forbes [46]-1-
Green news [47]-1-
Total532
Source: authors’ own elaboration.
Table
Table 2. Study reports (B) including the search term “woody biomass” [40,48,49,50,51,52].
Table 2. Study reports (B) including the search term “woody biomass” [40,48,49,50,51,52].
DateReport TitleAttitudes toward Woody Biomass as a Renewable Energy Source
PositiveNegativeNeutral
2022 Lasy do spalenia. Prawdziwa cena bioenergii (Forests to Burn. The Real Cost of Bioenergy)-1-
23 February 2017“Woody Biomass for Power and Heat” report-1-
2021Pellet drzewny w Polsce (Woody Pellet in Poland)--1
5 April 2022Przyszłość w płomieniach: Jak UE spala drzewa i nazywa to energią odnawialną (Future on Fire: How the EU burns trees in the name of renewable energy)-1-
November 2013CBOS na zlecenie Greenpeace (CBOS (Public Opinion Research Centre) commissioned by Greenpeace)-1-
November 2020Raport specjalny | Energia z biogazu i biomasy (Special Report|Energy from Biogas and Biomass)--1
Total 042
Source: authors’ own elaboration.
Table
Table 3. Social media 1: Twitter (C) Mode of selection—category: TOP [53].
Table 3. Social media 1: Twitter (C) Mode of selection—category: TOP [53].
DateProfileAttitudes toward Woody Biomass as a Renewable Energy Source
PositiveNegativeNeutral
12 February 2022Esperanza @GregorMindset-1-
7 February 2022 -1-
@michal_alberski-1-
27 August 2021@Ekobiznes11--
16 June 2021@Greenpeace_PL-1-
31 March 2021Pracownia Bystra @PracowniaBystra--1
16 June 2020@Ecology_now-1-
13 June 2021@Greennewspl1-1-
8 February 2022@MKiS_GOV_PL Wiceminister Edward Siarka w @PR24_pl--1
12 June 2022@PFK_EKONAUKA1--
21 October 2020@PLswiatkominkow1--
18 February 2021@Smog_Wawerski1--
3 August 2021@Hajduk_inserts1--
9 December 2020@DNasinski1--
12 May 2022Witold Strzelczyk @WitoldStrzelcz4--1
23 May 2021@stepien_przemek--1
16 April 2022Czyste Ogrzewanie @CzysteCieplo-1-
Total 674
Source: authors’ own elaboration.
Table
Table 4. Social media 2: Facebook (D) [54].
Table 4. Social media 2: Facebook (D) [54].
DateProfileAttitudes toward Woody Biomass as a Renewable Energy SourceNumber of Comments, Likes and Expressed Attitude
PositiveNegativeNeutral
13 May 2022Ekowyborca
(Eco-choice)		-1-4 comments
67 likes
Positive
3 February 2022Pracownia na rzecz Wszystkich Istot
(Workshop for All Beings)		-1-54 comments
332 shares
Positive and negative
8 July 2022KOMO Kominki
(Fireplaces)		1--11 comments
Negative
1 July 2022Pracownia na rzecz Wszystkich Istot
(Workshop for All Beings)		-1-
Total 130
Source: authors’ own elaboration.
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Słupińska, K.; Wieruszewski, M.; Szczypa, P.; Kożuch, A.; Adamowicz, K. Public Perception of the Use of Woody Biomass for Energy Purposes in the Evaluation of Content and Information Management on the Internet. Energies 2022, 15, 6888. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15196888

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Słupińska K, Wieruszewski M, Szczypa P, Kożuch A, Adamowicz K. Public Perception of the Use of Woody Biomass for Energy Purposes in the Evaluation of Content and Information Management on the Internet. Energies. 2022; 15(19):6888. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15196888

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Słupińska, Kamila, Marek Wieruszewski, Piotr Szczypa, Anna Kożuch, and Krzysztof Adamowicz. 2022. "Public Perception of the Use of Woody Biomass for Energy Purposes in the Evaluation of Content and Information Management on the Internet" Energies 15, no. 19: 6888. https://doi.org/10.3390/en15196888

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