WIND: Offshore wind faces big challenges in North Carolina, including local opposition and a looming, Trump-era ban on coastal energy development, but a new coalition says the barriers are surmountable, and that the opportunities are even larger. (Energy News Network)

ALSO: Virginia’s coastal Hampton Roads region aims to become the East Coast’s supply chain hub for the offshore wind industry. (Virginia Business)

SOLAR:
• Largely rural Virginia counties that have long been defined by farming try to find a balance between utility-scale solar power, agriculture and open space. (Danville Register & Bee, Rappahannock News)
• Arkansas solar advocates worry proposed tariffs on solar modules and panels imported from Southeast Asia would choke industry expansion and threaten its continued growth. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

RENEWABLE GAS: A Virginia planning commission tables consideration of a hog-to-gas project by Dominion Energy and Smithfield Foods for 60 days after county residents express concerns about smell and other potential effects. (Smithfield Times)

COAL:
• Kentucky officials take legal action to enforce a $3 million fine on coal companies owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice for reclamation violations at mines in eastern Kentucky, as well as to revoke five mining permits. (Lexington Herald-Leader)
• Four men accused of falsifying air quality tests at Kentucky coal mines to circumvent federal rules meant to protect miners from dust known to cause black lung are set to go to trial in November. (Messenger-Inquirer)
• The Tennessee Valley Authority demolishes silos and storage facilities at the Paradise Fossil Plant in Kentucky. (WEHT)

UTILITIES: Entergy’s stock price slumps on concerns over recent scrutiny from regulators and the possibility that much larger infrastructure investments will be needed to fix damage from Hurricane Ida and harden the local grid. (NOLA.com)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Georgia Power launches a program to assist businesses with funding to build electric vehicle infrastructure in a state already home to 930 public charging stations. (Daily Energy Insider)
• While other states move to embrace electric vehicles, Florida lawmakers passed a law prohibiting cities from requiring gas stations to add electric chargers. (CleanTechnica)
• As Kentucky celebrates Ford’s announcement that it will build twin battery factories in the state, a Louisville nonprofit has installed 82 charging stations. (WYMT)

COAL ASH: Tennessee Valley Authority prepares to begin coal ash cleanup at the Allen Fossil Plant in southwest Memphis, which closed three years ago. (Daily Memphian)

HYDROELECTRIC: Mid-September rain filled Tennessee reservoirs and boosted power production at the Tennessee Valley Authority’s hydroelectric dams. (Moulton Advertiser)

CLIMATE:
• Austin leaders consider a plan to accelerate the target date for emitting zero greenhouse gases to 2040 — a decade earlier than previously planned. (Austin Chronicle)
• A Georgia company that is the world’s biggest floor covering firm pledges to reduce its carbon footprint and become a net-zero carbon emitter by 2040. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)
• A Georgia nonprofit lobbies to get Columbus city officials to commit to a goal of 100% clean and renewable energy by 2035. (WRBL)

COMMENTARY:
• Arkansas’ long commutes and limited access to charging infrastructure make customers reluctant to buy electric vehicles, but that can be changed by continued investments in charging stations, writes a consultant for a solar business. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
• Kentucky should transition from the declining coal industry to advanced nuclear power, writes a nuclear engineering major at North Carolina State University. (Courier-Journal)

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.