When Decarbonization Reinforces Colonization: Complex Energy Injustice and Solar Energy Development in the California Desert

Based on extensive field research, this article applies an Indigenous energy injustice framework to a utility-scale solar energy project. The Genesis Solar Energy Center was completed in 2014, and it is an innovative 250 MW concentrated solar power facility in Riverside County, California. We explore the impact of Genesis on one Indigenous authority, the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT), given that the Genesis project site occupies a landscape full of cultural artifacts from numerous Indigenous civilizations and nations. Using a mix of expert interviews, community interviews, and focus groups, we analyze five dimensions of complex energy injustice associated with the Genesis project. Racial injustices include the discriminatory ways that Genesis distributed costs and benefits such as occupational hazards for minority workers, prompted intertribal conflict, and had disparities in employment opportunities. Spatial and interspecies injustices encompass Genesis’s multiple dependence on fossil fuels and toxic materials as well as its contribution to air pollution and dust, the risk of fires, deleterious effects on wildlife, and water usage. Recognition injustices involve the removal of CRIT cultural artifacts and burial remains from the Genesis territory, eroding the spiritual sacredness that CRIT places on land, and interference with historic hunting practices. Procedural colonial injustices envelop flawed community consultations, the exclusion of CRIT claims and evidence from legal proceedings, and disregarding calls from CRIT to cancel the project. Indigenous self-determination concerns relate to the nonuse of solar energy on the reservation, burgeoning energy security and poverty needs, and unmet investments in aging infrastructure on the CRIT reservation.