CLIMATE:
• Rising sea levels are already changing the market for coastal real estate in Florida. (New York Times)
St. Petersburg is the first municipality in Florida to commit to a Sierra Club program striving for clean energy and climate mitigation. (WLRN)

STORAGE: PJM Interconnection capitalizes on federal rules changes to lead on energy storage, saving money for ratepayers in the process. (Southeast Energy News)

COAL ASH:
• Duke Energy is to pay as much as $1.25 million to settle end litigation over ash pollution from the Sutton power plant near Wilmington. (Charlotte Business Journal)
• Environmentalists share concerns over Alabama Power’s plan to keep ash stored at existing disposal sites. (Lagniappe Weekly)
• Environmental lawyers are set Tuesday to discuss the TVA’s plan to store ash at its Bull Run plant in Claxton, Tennessee. (Oak Ridge Today)

SOLAR:
Regulators in Louisiana eliminate the cap on solar systems that qualify for net metering. (KATC)
• Regulators approve a plan by East Kentucky Power to lease shares of a community power system to customers. (Associated Press)
• The gulf between Duke Energy and independent developers in North Carolina widens over its proposal to restructure the solar market there. (Charlotte Observer)
• A letter to homeowners signals a developer’s plan to build a 35 megawatt solar farm in James City County, Virginia. (Williamsburg Yorktown Daily)
• A developer plans to build more large projects in South Carolina. (Palmetto Business Daily)
• More than 500 homeowners and businesses express interest in a Georgia solar bulk-purchasing co-op but only about 30 have made purchase commitments. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Tesla opens a boutique gallery inside a Nordstrom’s store in Charlotte. (Charlotte Observer)
• The fight over a Tesla store in Richmond heats up with a court’s decision expected by year’s end. (Washington Post)

COAL:
• West Virginia’s senators say they have 20 colleagues signed on to a letter urging Congress to authorize extension of miner’s benefits before they expire Jan. 1. (Associated Press)
• Mississippi Power achieves a milestone in its bid to get its Kemper “clean coal” plant operating by year’s end. (Mississippi Today)
• Promises by President-elect Trump to revive the coal industry will be hard to keep but some miners have faith he’ll succeed. (New York Times)

POLICY:
• President-elect Trump reportedly taps the former owner of a West Virginia coal mine to be Commerce Secretary. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
Green groups eye federal courts to try to block expected pullbacks of environmental initiatives by President-elect Trump. (The Hill)

EFFICIENCY: Miami-Dade County joins a national energy efficiency initiative. (WLRN)

BIOMASS: A North Carolina plant reports a widening loss on operations for the first nine months of 2016 compared to the same period last year. (Charlotte Business Journal)

NATURAL GAS: An advocacy group in North Carolina calls for public hearings in its challenge against Duke Energy’s plan to convert a coal-fired power plant to natural gas. (Charlotte Business Journal)

UTILITIES: A Tennessee Congressman urges the TVA to cool a gas-fired power plant with recycled waste water rather than  fresh water from a nearby aquifer. (Memphis Flyer)

TRANSPORTATION: The next sustainability project along the I-85 corridor between Alabama and Georgia is to include a station to test tire pressure and tread depth. (Atlanta Business Chronicle)

PIPELINES:
• A property owner in Central Virginia persuades Dominion to reroute the path it wants for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
• The current route planned for the Mountain Valley Pipeline could reverse the economic recovery of this Central Virginia town. (The Roanoke Times)

OFFSHORE DRILLING: Fact-checkers assess a claim by Sen. Bill Nelson, D-FL, that President-elect Trump intends to authorize drilling along the Atlantic Coast. (PolitiFact Florida | Miami Herald)

WIND: The CEO of the company developing the Clean Line interstate transmission project tells business students “persistence” is needed to site controversial energy systems. (Electric Light & Power)

COMMENTARY:
• The nomination of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as the next U.N. Ambassador is reason to worry about mitigating climate change. (ThinkProgress)
West Virginia urgently needs to redefine what lands qualify for public use so that the proposed Mountain Valley Pipeline can boost in-state jobs. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• Mitch McConnell, R-KY, needs to stop blocking the extension of benefits for retired coal miners. (The New York Times)
• After this year’s elections, strong state leadership on the environmental is critical for Virginia. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Jim Pierobon, a policy, marketing and social media strategist, was a founding contributor to Southeast Energy News. He passed away after a long battle with pancreatic cancer in 2018.

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