The examples don't make much sense. There is plenty of reason to fear electricity (electrocution), coal (pollution/fires), and gas-powered engines (explosions). Not some much now, perhaps, but in their infancy, they were dangerous. It would be better to say that people fear change when it isn't explained; and not irrationally, since an unexplained change may very well be an unexamined one, and therefore quite probably dangerous to adopt.