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Abstract Energy transitions are reshaping hydrosocial relations. How they will be reshaped, however, depends on location and water's material relationship to other resources and industrial activities embedded within energy transitions. To highlight this, we focus on three different resources—coal, natural gas, and lithium—to signal how the water–energy nexus will be reworked in a transition away from fossil fuels. We examine the water–coal nexus as an example of a resource relationship that is transitioningout, or that is being moved away from in the green energy transition. Natural gas represents the “bridge fuel” usedthroughthe transition. Lithium illustrates a resourceinsidethe green transition, as it is a fundamental material for green technologiesinthe transition to a low‐carbon future. Coal, natural gas, and lithium each have their own material impacts to water resources that stem from their industrial lifecycle and different implications for communities shaped by coal, natural gas, and lithium activities. To explore this, we review each of these resources' connection to water, their legal and regulatory dimensions, and their impact on communities and water justice. We argue that the energy transition is also a hydrosocial transition that will create uneven water‐related benefits and burdens. To maximize sustainability and equity, efforts to decarbonize energy systems must examine the localized, place‐based hydrosocial relations that differentially affect communities. This article is categorized under:Engineering Water > Planning WaterHuman Water > Water GovernanceHuman Water > Rights to Water 

Abstract Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind produce electricity intermittently, creating challenges in balancing electricity supply and demand for increasingly renewable‐dominated grids. This is driving efforts to increase energy storage infrastructure, such as pumped hydroelectric power storage (pumped storage). In this research, we examine environmental justice issues in a case study of a proposed pumped storage facility in Goldendale, Washington, which has been highly controversial and actively contested by a coalition of Indigenous and environmental communities. Drawing from frameworks of political ecology, just transitions, and Indigenous environmental justice, we focus on processes of consultation and engagement around permitting as a key arena for environmental justice contestation, and critically examine the driving assumptions behind the project. Despite popular framings of renewable energy infrastructures as new and green, we argue that the environmental justice impacts of this and similar projects represent continuity with past patterns of settler colonialism and extractive development.