GRID: The former head of Texas’ grid management agency testifies in court that Gov. Greg Abbott ordered him to keep power prices as high as possible for several days during last year’s winter storm blackouts — an account the governor disputes. (Houston Chronicle, KXAS)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Siemens unveils a weather-proof electric vehicle charging station dubbed the “gas station of the future” at its Georgia R&D hub. (Global Atlanta)
• Duke Energy announces four new electric vehicle charging stations in Florida. (WCJB)

PIPELINES:
• Kinder Morgan proposes a Tennessee pipeline to move natural gas to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Cumberland Fossil Plant, but residents raise questions about its need, safety and environmental impacts. (Tennessee Lookout)
• Equitrans Midstream files a pipeline expansion project with federal regulators that would expand its capacity in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, and appears to be a back-up project if its Mountain Valley Pipeline can’t be completed. (Pittsburgh Business Journal, subscription; Marcellus Drilling News)

SOLAR: Florida lawmakers advance legislation to open state water bodies to floating solar energy arrays. (Florida Politics)

NUCLEAR: Federal regulators effectively reverse their previous decision to allow a Florida nuclear plant to continue running until mid-century by ordering a new review of its potential environmental risks. (Miami Herald)

UTILITIES:
• Entergy announces a three-year, $12 billion investment to shift to cleaner power sources, and a multi-billion dollar plan to strengthen the power grid along the Gulf Coast. (E&E News, subscription)
• A Florida city council is divided on the question of whether to create its own municipal electric utility. (Pensacola News Journal)

COAL: Today marks the 50th anniversary of West Virginia’s Buffalo Creek disaster, in which a dam broke and spilled 132 million gallons of coal slurry, killing 125 people and leaving thousands homeless. (WV Metro News, Daily Yonder)

OIL & GAS: An oil and gas industry attorney says the natural gas industry in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas could play an increasingly important global role as the world responds to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (KTBS)

CLIMATE: A new poll shows roughly 60% of Georgia residents want state leaders to set climate goals. (Axios)

CRYPTOCURRENCY: A planned North Carolina crypto mining facility attracts criticism for the industry’s high carbon emissions and the uncertain financial future of cryptocurrency. (Carolina Public Press)

COMMENTARY:
• Texas’ system of appointments and campaign finance complicated the state’s response to last year’s winter storm, leading to a mandated price spike that ensured profits for power companies, writes a columnist. (Houston Chronicle)
• Federal regulators’ increasingly stringent consideration of natural gas pipelines stems in large part from the failure of such projects in Virginia, where strong legal resources and high incomes and education levels boosted activists’ efforts to block them, writes a columnist. (Triple Pundit)

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.