As economic bad news rolled across the U.S., a survey finds that public support for clean energy initiatives went down, reaching 43% in the last quarter of 2011.

Pike Research said, "the average percentage of consumers with an “extremely” or “very” favorable view of 13 clean energy concepts declined significantly from 50% in 2009 to 45% in 2010, and dropped further to 43% in 2011."

Pike bills itself as a "cleantech market intelligence firm" supporting clean energy concepts.

The survey covered 1,048 consumers and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.