POLITICS: Climate activists failed to flip North Carolina’s legislature, but some still see hope for clean energy policy next year — as long as Duke Energy is on board. (Energy News Network)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Duke Energy and Southern Company are among the utilities joining a new lobbying group calling for a 100% shift to electric cars by 2030. (Verge, WABE)
• Florida regulators say localities can use $57 million from the federal government’s settlement with Volkswagen to replace diesel-fueled school buses with electric ones. (Florida Phoenix)
COAL:
• San Antonio’s city-owned electric utility says it owes too much money on a coal-fired power plant to close it in the next decade. (San Antonio Express-News)
• A southwestern Virginia county reaches a settlement on unpaid back taxes owed by coal companies belonging to the family of West Virginia’s governor, with payments going to ATV trails. (Times West Virginian)
PIPELINES:
• A federal appeals court denies a request to stop work on the Mountain Valley Pipeline, upholding an agency’s finding that the pipeline won’t significantly affect endangered and threatened species. (Roanoke Times)
• Construction of a pipeline to a paper plant will disrupt trails and traffic in a northwestern Georgia community. (Rome News-Tribune)
• Pig farmers and eastern North Carolina residents respond to a planned 30-mile pipeline to carry methane from farms to a biogas processing facility. (WRAL)
• Dominion Energy begins a 4-mile natural gas pipeline in a South Carolina town. (WCIV)
UTILITIES: The Tennessee Valley Authority boosts pay and benefits for its president, the highest paid federal employee in America, while navigating a $5.6 billion pension shortfall. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)
COAL ASH: Environmental groups and neighborhood advocates scrutinize the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plan to move 3.5 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash from a shuttered Memphis power plant. (WKNO)
STORAGE: Energy companies use Oklahoma solar and wind farms as a testing ground for development of battery technology. (The Oklahoman)
EFFICIENCY: A report shows that nearly 322,000 energy efficiency jobs have been lost during the pandemic, including more than 18,000 in Florida. (WJCT)
SOLAR:
• Energy developer Invenergy launches construction of a five-phase, 1,310 MW solar complex spread across three Texas counties, and big-name commercial customers already are signing up. (Greentech Media, Chicago Business Journal)
• Steel producer Nucor signs a 15-year agreement to buy power from a 250 MW solar facility set to be built in Texas. (PV Magazine)
• Silicon Ranch announces plans for a $55 million, 68 MW solar project in central Georgia. (WMAZ)
GRID: Xcel Energy nears completion of a new transmission line in Texas and New Mexico. (KVIH)
CLIMATE: Republican leaders in Florida’s state legislature consider plans to address rising sea levels in coastal communities. (Daytona Beach News-Journal)
OIL & GAS: A new Louisiana State University study says the state’s oil and gas industry likely has moved past the worst of its pandemic-related downturn, though it may never rebound to where it was before COVID-19. (Bossier Now)