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PIPELINES: Activists who’ve been fighting the Mountain Valley Pipeline for eight years say they won’t back down just because U.S. Senate Democrats reportedly agreed to greenlight its completion to secure passage of their climate spending package. (Energy News Network, E&E News)
SOLAR: • A pair of energy companies partner to convert a shuttered Louisiana coal plant into a 240 MW solar farm. (Acadiana Advocate) • Florida Power & Light says it’s building 16 solar energy centers across the state, breaking a 2020 record when it was building 14 solar farms simultaneously. (Daily Energy Insider) • A Louisiana parish government enacts a moratorium on new large solar complexes to study land use rules, irritating environmentalists and a utility executive. (The Advocate) • A Virginia county planning commission recommends approval of a 90 MW solar farm that will go to a county board for a likely final vote next month. (South Boston News & Record, Gazette-Virginian) • A southern Virginia county board awards special-use permits to two Dominion Energy community solar farms. (Chatham Star-Tribune) • The Port of Corpus Christi in Texas enters a lease agreement with an energy company to build a solar farm on 248 acres at the port and neighboring land. (Maritime Executive)
GRID: Louisiana regulators narrowly vote to delay financing for New Orleans to build an electrical substation to power city services — until city officials rescind a resolution not to enforce Louisiana’s abortion law. (Louisiana Illuminator, WVUE)
STORAGE: • A Texas power provider adds a 260 MW battery storage system to a gas-fired power plant, making it the largest energy storage system in the state and the first paired with a gas “peaker” plant. (Dallas Morning News) • Duke Energy completes the deployment of 8.25 MW and 5.5 MW battery storage systems in Florida. (Energy Storage News)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Three West Virginia county school systems prepare to test electric school buses as part of a pilot program. (Charleston Gazette-Mail, subscription)
EFFICIENCY: An energy efficiency upgrade program for low- and moderate-income homeowners celebrates its 600th project in Chattanooga, Tennessee. (Chattanooga Times Free Press, Chattanoogan)
OIL & GAS: The new climate spending package signed by President Biden this week largely bypasses the administration’s emissions concerns and buoys oil and gas interests by mandating leasing in the Gulf of Mexico. (USA Today)
POLITICS: • Experts say the Inflation Reduction Act’s extension of federal tax credits for renewables, incentives for hydrogen and carbon capture, and expanded leasing for drilling could supercharge Texas’ energy economy. (Dallas Morning News) • Candidates running for the Democratic nomination for Florida governor debate energy and the environment. (Spectrum News)
UTILITIES: The Supreme Court of Virginia reverses part of state regulators’ decision about how Appalachian Power should treat costs linked to the closure of several coal-fired power plants, resulting in likely electricity rate increases. (Roanoke Times, Virginia Mercury)
COAL: A Kentucky grand jury indicts a coal company and one of its workers for allegedly cheating on dust sampling intended to protect workers from black lung disease. (Lexington Herald-Leader, Ohio Valley ReSource)
COMMENTARY: Florida Republican candidates who slam President Biden for his energy policies while promising to protect the state’s coast from offshore oil drilling contradict themselves so much it’s silly, writes a longtime environmental journalist. (Florida Phoenix)
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Mason has worked as a journalist since 2001, covering Appalachian communities and the issues that affect them. He compiles the Southeast Energy News digest. Mason previously worked as a wildlife biologist before moving into journalism by freelancing at Coast Weekly in Monterey, California, before taking an internship in 2001 at High Country News. He wrote for the Enterprise Mountaineer in western North Carolina and the Roanoke Times in western Virginia before going freelance in 2012. His work has appeared in Southerly, Daily Yonder, Mother Jones, Huffington Post, WVPB’s Inside Appalachia and elsewhere. Mason was born and raised in Clifton Forge, Virginia, and now lives with his family and a small herd of goats in Floyd County, Virginia.
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