Burdened by renewable energy? A multi-scalar analysis of distributional justice and wind energy in the United States

Abstract

The transition towards renewable energy is likely to be uneven across social and spatial dimensions. To ensure this transition is equitable and just, energy injustice has become the key framework for analyzing and interpreting the distribution of energy infrastructure. Wind energy development has experienced a significant gap between broad public support for increased development but persistent localized opposition to proposed projects, indicating that wind represents a locally unwanted land use. We present the theoretical argument that although the negative impacts of wind energy infrastructure are less extreme than those posed by other, more toxic, unwanted land uses, their status as a locally unwanted land use will produce similar distributional injustices as have been found throughout the environmental injustice literature. Using data from both the American Community Survey, the U.S. Wind Turbine Database, and the National Renewable Energy Lab we use logistic and Poisson regressions, fixed effects, and temporal lags to evaluate the current landscape of wind energy injustice along the social dimensions of income, race and ethnicity, age, education, labor force participation, and rurality at three spatial scales: between all counties within the contiguous United States, between counties within states with wind energy, and between census tracts within counties with wind energy. We do not find strong evidence of distributional injustice along the lines of race, ethnicity, or low-income. However, we do find evidence of injustice for populations which are younger, less educated, have lower labor force participation, and are more rural.