I'm wondering, because when you read the news nowadays it seems as if everybody is sure that we will go from using oil and coal to power our homes, to using 'durables'. Did people in that time think about changes in energy sources the same way as we do now?
I can give an answer from a UK perspective, though bear in mind that 'the population' is an incredibly broad group. It is essentially the same as asking how the European population feels about renewable energy today. My answer is going to focus wholly on Britain as the birth site of the Industrial Revolution; please bear in mind that other countries might have had different groups/reactions. I think a better comparison is between contemporary views on automation. Personally - and with little actual evidence to back it up - I believe that the arguments against the use of robots/automation will be compared to the use of steam technology in similarly mocking tones.
The views can easily be grouped into favourable and non-favourable, which of course roughly corresponds to those that benefitted from it, and those that did not. In terms of those that benefitted, factory and mill owners were a significant section. Since they represented an influential proportion of MPs in the 1800s, they were able to block or limit the progress of legislation to limit the exploitation of workers.
Many entrepreneurs and commentators realised the potential of the new forms of energy, especially once operating costs became more favourable. The most basic innovation was the mass exploitation of the water wheel, particularly in the textiles industry. Arkwright's water frame initially could spin 96 yarns at once, operated by 1 or 2 unskilled workers. Improvements like the Spinning Mule could do up to 400, especially when combined with steam technology. Newcomen's steam engines from 1710 was used, but many were unhappy due to the large amounts of coal that had to be used. Watt's design massively improved upon this, and from 1775 they held a patent which prevented others from producing their own. This was mostly used in removing water from mines, but was also used in factories to a small extent. Arthur Young's Tours of England and Wales (1791) asks "In what path of life can a man be found that will not animate his pursuit from seeing the steam-engine of Watt?" Watt's rotary-steam engine finally intertwined the two areas of textiles and steam, which exploded in usage. Guest, writing in A History of the Cotton Manufacture (1823) estimated that in Manchester and the surrounding area, the amount of steam-powered looms more than doubled in 3 years, from 2,000 in 14 factories in 1818, to 5,732 in 32 factories in 1821.
Between 1809 and 1839, exports grew from £25.4 to £76 million, with Britain exporting to Europe, its interests in India and Asia, and the United States (though this was not all due to new forms of energy). This acted as both encouragement of the technologies, and a significant obstacle to preventing their use. Additionally, the theory of Classical Economics dominated discussions about the effects of regulating industry. John Smith (do not confuse with Adam Smith!) wrote 'Memoirs of Wool' in 1747 saying that "the poor in the manufacturing countries will never work any more time in general than is necessary just to live and support their weekly debaucheries.... We can be fairly aver that a reduction of wages in the woollen manufacture would be a national blessing.... By this means we might keep our trade, uphold our rents, and reform the people into the bargain." Those in support of the new technologies were often either dismissive or downright insulting towards the 'losers' of the Industrial Revolution. For example, the Marquess of Londonderry spoke in the House of Lords against the Mines Act 1842, claiming that "The child trapper [in charge of opening a mineshaft door to regulate airflow] is generally cheerful and contented, and to be found occupied with some childish amusement such as cutting sticks, making models and drawing figures with chalk on his door". Unsurprisingly, he was an owner of several mines...
However, do not assume that all industrialists were money-grabbers. Robert Owen, for example, was a factory owner and social reformer. In 1815, he wrote that “The acquisition of wealth, and the desire which is natural creates for a continued increase, have introduced a fondness for essential injurious luxuries among a numerous class of individuals who formerly never thought of them….the lower orders, from whose labour this wealth is now drawn, has been carried by new competitors….to a point of real oppression reducing them….to a state more wretched than can be imagined by those who have not attentively observed the changes as they have gradually occurred.” Sir Robert Peel (PM from 1841-6) was the son of a self-made factory owner, and supported/passed several pieces of legislation such as the Factory Act 1844. In an entirely different vein, many of the upper-class opposed steam for how it supplanted the ‘natural’ order of things. Railway surveyors were sometimes attacked by mobs hired by local landlords, angry that proposed railways would cut through their land or disrupt their agricultural or other interests.
The most famous example of people opposed to the new technologies were the Luddites. Ned Ludd was a fictional man who smashed the frames of mechanical as a form of protest. Over time, the term 'luddism' has become a term for those either opposed to new technologies, or those that simply refuse to adopt them. In fact, the Luddites were only opposed to the fact that these machines were being used to usurp traditional labour practices, rendering their training obsolete. The introduction of machines looms ruined the traditional trade of weavers; their average wages fell 33% from 21 shillings in 1802 to 14 in 1809. The government responded with the Frame-Breaking Act 1788, making breaking of a frame punishable by imprisonment or transportation (shipment to one of Britain's penal colonies, most famously Australia). From 1812, frame-breaking carried the death penalty, demonstrating the level of strength Parliament had for greater automation of manufacturing. More peaceful demonstrations such as the March of the Blanketeers in 1817 from Manchester to London was forcefully abandoned, and the infamous Peterloo Massacre of 1819 in Manchester as well saw over a dozen killed and hundreds wounded when soldiers with sabres charged into a peaceful crowd campaigning for parliamentary reform and economic relief.
Much of the opposition grew from the fact that people were simply working much more, with less control over their working hours and conditions. The Ten Hour Movement, championed by Ashley among others, sought to limit the working day. It had limited success in the 1833 Factory Act (for children), and appointed 4 factory inspectors for the entire country. Possibly my favourite fact of all time relates to how ineffectual these inspectors were; Robert Rickards was essentially in charge of all of Scotland and North England, and died from ‘excessive workload’. In 1847, the working week for all mill workers was essentially reduced to 10 hours a day.
Those that worked in coal mines have surely had some of the worst jobs in humanity's existence. The prevalence of mine collapses, long working hours and poor conditions, and medical issues such as black lung meant that the average life of a coal miner was pitiful. Reformers such as Ashley (ironically named Lord Shaftesbury) pressured for change, leading to the Mines and Collieries Act 1842 which banned women, children, and boys under 10 from working underground in mines (inadvertantly leading to widespread use of pit ponies). This was spurred by the creation of a Children's Employment Commission in the same year. Its report shocked the population; as a whole, it was unaware of the extent of child employment in mines and factories, suggesting that most people were generally ignorant of the wider societal effects of the Industrial Revolution. Interestingly, the opposition to children and female workers in mines rested mainly on social rather than economic concerns. For women and girls, many in the Commission were shocked that they often worked bare-chested due to the intense heat. A famous drawing depicts a boy and girl being lowered down a mineshaft straddling each other, outraging Victorian sensibility. Similarly, the separation of children from their parents offended notions of the parents' roles in the moral upbringing of their children, as well as shocking accounts of underage sex, or sexual abuse from overseers.
References:
If you have a spare hour, I recommend 'Suffer the Children', a Timewatch documentary made in the early 1990s that I show to my students. It was made before I was born and has some questionable re-enactments of parliamentary commissions, but neatly captures the key arguments for and against industrial practices, as well as wider concerns about urban slum living and also agricultural work in the Fens.