NUCLEAR: Amid moves to fix its costs, South Carolina Electric & Gas requests an $852 million increase in the cost of two reactors under construction, raising the current estimate to about $14 billion. (Huntington News Service)
ALSO:
• Georgia utility commissioner Lauren “Bubba” McDonald Jr. says he opposes the state’s largest utility charging customers for studying the feasibility of more reactors. (Augusta Chronicle)
• The Secretary of the Navy says the time may have come to power its bases with small modular reactors. (Federal News Radio)
COAL ASH: Four residents of a small Alabama town are fighting back against a giant landfill operator in Georgia that filed a $30 million defamation suit against it for opposing an ash dump. (Grist)
RENEWABLES: A new report by two environmental groups and the Edison Electric Institute spotlights moves by Duke Energy and Dominion Virginia Power among others to forge deals with key customers. (Utility Dive)
SOLAR: South Carolina lawmakers decline to act on a bill that would have provided a 25 percent income tax credit for installing a solar farm on a closed toxic waste dump. (The State)
NATURAL GAS: Kinder Morgan says it has received federal approval to develop a liquefaction facility on Elba Island, near Savannah, Georgia. (24/7 Wall St)
UTILITIES: Today is the day Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources can walk away from its proposed acquisition of Hawaii’s largest utility. (SunSentinel)
WIND: Appalachian Power says it has agreed to purchase 120 megawatts of new wind-generated electricity in Indiana from a subsidiary of Florida-based NextEra Energy Resources. (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
PIPELINES: A citizens’ coalition calls on Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe to form a panel to review both the proposed Atlantic Coast and Mountain Valley pipelines. (Staunton News Leader)
COAL:
• Coal output in state dropped 36 percent in the first few months of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015. (Mining Weekly)
• A former mine supervisor in Kentucky pleads guilty to violating a safety standard that led to the death of an employee. (Associated Press)
• Three coal-dependent counties in Southwest Virginia struggle as unemployment throughout the state falls to 3.5 percent. (WCYB)
COMMENTARY:
• The environmental stewardship of Florida Gov. Rick Scott has been “atrocious.” (Huffington Post)
• Why does Duke Energy support a sales tax on rooftop solar systems in South Carolina? (FitsNews blog)
• The parent companies of several Southeast utilities are developing renewable energy systems outside the region; they should be doing that at home too. (Natural Resources Defense Council)
• North Carolina’s elected officials need to focus on the safety of drinking water near Duke Energy’s coal ash ponds, not the utility’s bottom line. (Greenville Daily Reflector)