PIPELINES: A Virginia air board denies a permit for a compressor station on Mountain Valley Pipeline’s Southgate extension because the site would affect an environmental justice community and run afoul of state law. (Danville Register & Bee)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Toyota looks set to announce today it will invest billions of dollars in building a battery plant outside Greensboro, North Carolina, to help it ramp up electric vehicle production. (WAVY, Bloomberg)
• A new West Virginia company reuses old electric car batteries for solar power systems. (The State Journal)

SOLAR: Amazon announces a 70 MW solar farm in Georgia as part of a larger initiative to shift entirely to renewable energy by 2025. (Augusta Chronicle)

GRID:
• Texas’ grid manager says it will inspect more than 300 natural gas, nuclear, coal, wind and solar generation plants this month to ensure they have weatherized as the governor attempts to reassure residents the grid is more reliable than last year. (KTSM, KVUE)
• Leaders in Texas cities say they’re better positioned for a winter storm than last year, but still face shortfalls in their ability to ensure water stays on and to deliver necessary information to their most vulnerable residents. (Texas Tribune)

HYDROPOWER: Seven organizations file paperwork with the federal government to try to persuade Georgia Power to remove a 160-foot dam on the Chattooga River instead of upgrading it. (The State)

COAL:
• Environmentalists and community advocates worry a leak from a coal ash pond in southern Alabama could disrupt one of the most biodiverse areas in the U.S. (CNN)
• A Kentucky coal miner died while performing maintenance at an underground mine. (Associated Press)

TRANSITION: Experts say the idea that renewable facilities will flourish in coal-producing areas is an “urban myth” because many of those communities lack strong renewable resources or face siting constraints. (E&E News)

CLIMATE: Students and alumni rally at the University of Virginia against investment in fossil fuels. (WVIR)

INFRASTRUCTURE: Federal officials look to use infrastructure funding to heal scars left by previous road construction that devastated Black communities such as Jackson Ward in Richmond, Virginia, which was known as “the Harlem of the South” before Interstate 95 arrived in the ‘50s. (Virginia Mercury)

COMMENTARY:
• Experts from the Gulf Coast’s offshore oil industry now are addressing carbon capture, renewable hydrogen and offshore wind projects as the sector looks to tamp down carbon emissions, writes the head of a trade group. (Houston Chronicle)
• Louisiana political leaders rally around a shift to wind power that includes the use of former offshore oil workers and the backing of the federal government. (The Advocate)
• Birders increasingly turn against the biomass industry because its production of wood pellets targets forests that are necessary for declining or endangered species, an advocacy group writes. (Southern Environmental Law Center)

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.