HURRICANE IDA: The entire city of New Orleans loses power when Hurricane Ida takes all eight electricity-transmission lines into the area offline, including one tower that collapsed into the Mississippi River. (NOLA.com)

ALSO:
• A Louisiana newspaper found 590 refineries, storage tanks and other industrial sites with toxic chemicals fell in the hurricane’s path, with the extent of potential damages still unknown. (NOLA.com)
• Roughly 95% of the Gulf Coast’s oil and gas production shut down ahead of the storm, along with many refineries and petrochemical plants. (S&P Global)
• Birthed in hot, moist air thick with clouds and incubated in unusually warm water in the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Ida becomes the poster child for climate change-driven disasters. (Washington Post)

EMISSIONS: A partnership in Virginia helps eight low-income homeowners reduce their carbon footprints by nearly 40% with an all-electric conversion. (Energy News Network)

PIPELINES:
• The Colonial Pipeline shut down two fuel lines between Texas and North Carolina as a precaution ahead of Hurricane Ida’s landfall. (Charlotte Observer)
• Virginia regulators begin taking public comments on a draft permit to allow Mountain Valley Pipeline to dig trenches through streams and wetlands in 428 locations. (Roanoke Times)

GRID: Texas’ top electricity regulator says an electricity market overhaul mandated after February’s winter storm killed more than 200 people must be properly handled to avoid more deaths in the future. (E&E News)

NUCLEAR:
• Federal regulators say they’ll watch the long-delayed expansion of Georgia Power’s Plant Vogtle even more closely after an inspection found that contractors did sloppy work and did not properly separate electrical cables. (Associated Press)
• A judge finds the Tennessee Valley Authority did not violate its sales contract and had no obligation to extend the closing deadline on the failed sale of an Alabama nuclear plant. (Associated Press)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: A Tesla on autopilot hits a police car in Florida. (ABC News)

WIND: Four investors testify they were misled by two men on trial in Arkansas for fraud in development of a wind farm that never came to fruition. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

COMMENTARY:
• Carbon is accelerating climate change, but can also be used for materials and hydrogen fuel in the clean energy transition, writes a columnist. (Houston Chronicle)
• A North Carolina planning commission must balance a proposed solar farm’s clean energy benefits against alternative uses for land in a growing county, writes an editorial board. (Salisbury Post)
• Before approving a Mountain Valley Pipeline compressor station, Virginia regulators should consider public health, property values, environmental damage and disruption to at least ten communities with disproportionately minority or low-income populations, writes an activist. (Roanoke Times)
• Virginians must shift to appliances that use electricity instead of fuel oil, propane or natural gas to mitigate climate change, write two members of an energy advocacy group. (Virginia Mercury)

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.