Benefit or Burden? Environmental Justice and Community-Scale Biomass Energy Systems in Vermont

Energy production and distribution have created archetypal cases of environmental injustice—mountaintop removal for coal mining in Appalachia, nuclear waste siting on Navajo reservations in the West, oil refineries in southern Louisiana. Renewable energy technologies designed to aid the transition to a lower-carbon economy have often perpetuated the injustices inherent in current energy systems. Clearly, all energy systems create environmental burdens. But to what extent can community-scale, renewable energy systems minimize environmental burdens and maximize benefits to local communities? How can green technologies and the sociopolitical relationships associated with those particular technologies be arranged so that renewable energy systems produce environmental and social benefits, while distributing burdens more equitably? This case study of community-scale woody biomass initiatives in Vermont examines how particular biomass technologies and associated power relations have structured environmental burdens and social benefits throughout the state. This study reveals the importance of decentralizing energy systems—not only in terms of energy technologies, but also of technological decision-making processes. We argue that distributing power in this way may be the most effective way to ensure a more just arrangement of benefits and burdens associated with green energy technologies.