ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Kentucky and Tennessee offered hundreds of million dollars in grants, performance loans, and workforce development funding to lure Ford Motor Co.’s recently announced electric vehicle and battery manufacturing plants. (Courier Journal)
• Kentucky’s electric vehicle drivers complain about the lack of public charging infrastructure, with a cluster of charging stations in the Louisville area but few to none everywhere else. (WAVE)

OIL & GAS:
• Texas regulators pressure the state’s natural gas industry to winterize before cold temperatures arrive. (E&E News, subscription)
• Rising crude oil prices leave Louisiana’s oil and gas industry largely unaffected, with drillers still hesitant to spend money on new wells amid concerns the price hikes are temporary and the Biden administration may enact new restrictions. (Advocate)
• Private drillers in the Permian Basin spur a shale drilling revival as global demand for oil removes some competitive pressure between suppliers, even while publicly traded companies remain largely cautious. (Bloomberg)

SOLAR: A charitable business in western Virginia installs a 548 kW solar system, while the surrounding region has yet to see a larger, utility-scale project. (Roanoke Times)

CLIMATE: A Louisiana levee system held up through Hurricane Ida, but climate change is making storms more severe and frequent, raising doubts about its future. (Advocate)

UTILITIES:
• A Florida city considers creating its own municipal utility instead of negotiating a new 30-year deal with Gulf Power. (Pensacola News Journal)
• Dominion Energy will resume disconnecting customers who are two months behind in their power bills after months of a pandemic-related moratorium. (WWBT)

COAL: Workers demolish part of a former coal-fired power plant in Mississippi that now has been converted largely to natural gas. (WTOK)

NUCLEAR:
• A judge approves a plea deal that will send the former CEO of a defunct utility to prison for two years for lying to ratepayers and regulators after he found out a pair of nuclear reactors being built in South Carolina were hopelessly behind schedule. (Associated Press)
• Duke Energy will test outdoor warning sirens at full volume for three minutes this week at a South Carolina nuclear plant. (SC Now)

STORAGE: Georgia regulators approve a 65 MW battery storage system by Georgia Power. (Renewables Now)

GRID:
• Two new board members join Texas’ power grid operator, which state lawmakers reconfigured after widespread power outages during a winter storm in February. (KVUE)
• A Texas power company asks regulators for approval to begin installing smart meters as part of a grid modernization program. (KLBK)

CRYPTOCURRENCY:
• A law professor expresses concern that the rush of cryptocurrency companies to Texas will put unsustainable pressure on the state’s electric grid. (KTXA)
• A Washington company announces plans to build a 300 MW blockchain data center in a Texas city. (Fort Worth Business Press)

COMMENTARY: North Carolina’s comprehensive energy bill offers hope for U.S. climate progress and important lessons for policymakers about persistence and compromise, writes a renewable power company official. (Energy News Network)

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.