WIND: The first-ever lease sale for wind energy systems off North Carolina’s coast is scheduled for March 16. (UPI)
ALSO:
• The developer of the large wind farm in eastern North Carolina set to supply electricity to Amazon Web Services near a U.S. Navy radar center cautions Republican legislators against shutting it down. (Triangle Business Journal)
• Contradicting concerns raised by legislators, the U.S. Navy says Amazon’s wind farm can co-exist without compromising its nearby radar facility; here’s their agreement with the developer. (DailyAdvance.com, Greenfleet.DoDlive.mil)
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UTILITIES:
• A much-anticipated constitutional challenge to how Virginia sets electricity rates is set to begin this week at the state’s Supreme Court. (Southeast Energy News)
• The Sierra Club files at the Florida Supreme Court to block a rate increase by Florida Power & Light that just took effect. (Palm Beach Post)
• With the positions of three directors, including its chairman, on hold, the TVA faces a possible strategy shift after President-elect Trump takes office. (Wall Street Journal)
COAL ASH: Despite claims to the contrary, Kentucky regulators and industry representatives privately rewrote rules governing the storage of ash near power plants. (WFPL)
WEST VIRGINIA: Gov. Jim Justice calls for a tiered severance tax system that lower taxes on oil and gas production when prices are low and increases them as prices rise. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
FRACKING: Federal officials are investigating the death at a worker at a fracking site in Tyler County, West Virginia. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
SOLAR:
• A new online marketplace for groups interested in developing community solar systems ramps up in North Carolina and other states. (ReCharge News)
• Greenwood County, South Carolina approves a 20-year property tax reduction for a planned 900 acre solar farm. (Index-Journal)
• The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy sets informational meetings for the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s “Solar in Your Community Challenge” in Miami, Memphis and Orlando. (CleanEnergy Footprints blog)
• A commission authorizes a lease to study a large solar farm near the Glynn County, Georgia airport. (GoldenIsles.news)
PIPELINES:
• An inter-agency rift between federal regulators could come to a head this week over a planned compressor station for a gas pipeline planned through Kentucky and West Virginia. (Greenwire)
• A county judge in Virginia clears the way for the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline to survey private land. (The News & Advance)
• Twelve persons are arrested outside at a Valero refinery in Memphis for protesting a planned oil pipeline. (Associated Press)
• At least eight persons are arrested in Florida at two construction sites for the Sabal Trail natural gas pipeline. (Gainesville Sun)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Sales are down 80% in Georgia over the last year and a half after lawmakers replaced a $5,000 tax incentive with a $200 registration fee. (Utility Dive)
COAL:
• Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, South Carolina, West Virginia and nine other states sue to block the Obama administration’s recently enacted “stream protection” rule. (Associated Press)
• Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, steps up his claim that environmental rules, not low-price natural gas, are mainly to blame for coal’s downturn. (KYForward.com)
RENEWABLES: The Kentucky Municipal Energy Agency is struggling to find renewable sources for its power generation portfolio. (The State Journal)
ACADEMIA: University of Kentucky officials pledge to reduce campus carbon emissions 25% by 2025. (Lexington Herald-Leader)
CLIMATE: A group of scientists in Florida pen a letter to Commerce Secretary nominee Wilbur Ross to defend the state’s coastline and his 15,000-square-foot mansion in Palm Beach. (Florida Politics)
NUCLEAR: Environmentalists start a petition against Florida Power & Light’s plan to store radioactive waste near an aquifer supplying Miami with drinking water. (Miami New Times)
COMMENTARY:
• Falling school enrollment due to coal’s decline in southwest Virginia is shortchanging their ability to function. (Roanoke Times)
• The Mountain Valley Pipeline prolongs the unequal burden that West Virginia bears for producing and delivering fossil fuels to energy consumers. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• Here’s how cleaner energy can help fill Virginia’s budget gap and create jobs at the same time. (Power for the People VA blog)
• West Virginia should follow China’s lead and reduce its reliance on coal. (Daily Athenaeum)