COAL: Four family-owned businesses with roots in southwestern Virginia’s coal economy turn toward storage and renewable energy with state grant funding. (Energy News Network)
ALSO:
• Federal regulators take over coal mining oversight from Oklahoma on the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Reservation after the Supreme Court reestablished tribal jurisdiction on the land last year. (E&E News, subscription)
• Virginia lawmakers kill a proposal by Gov. Ralph Northam to funnel savings from cutting a coal tax credit to a state university in the coalfields. (Kingsport Times News)
***SPONSORED LINK: Receive continuing education credits, learn about new energy solutions and best practices, and connect with other energy industry professionals at the 2021 State Energy (Virtual) Conference of North Carolina, April 19-22. Learn more and register at www.NCenergyconference.com. ***
UTILITIES:
• Duke Energy’s fossil fuel holdings and slow tilt toward renewables make it a target for activists and more than 20 local governments in North Carolina that have made zero-carbon-footprint pledges. (New Republic)
• San Antonio’s city-owned electric utility adds credits to the bills of customers who lost power for more than 24 hours in February’s storm and outages. (San Antonio Express News)
GRID: Public records show Texas’ regulators found themselves short of crucial information during the February outages before pivoting to attack renewables and shift blame from the oil and gas industry. (Gizmodo)
NUCLEAR: Texas lawmakers advance legislation to ban spent nuclear fuel rods from being disposed of or stored in the state while lowering fees on a company that runs a disposal site for lower-risk radioactive waste. (Texas Tribune, Corpus Christi Caller Times)
OVERSIGHT:
• West Virginia lawmakers consider bills to change how fossil fuel infrastructure is valued for taxation in ways that could cost local governments millions in revenue. (Charleston Gazette-Mail, Mountain State Spotlight)
• Texas regulators begin revising a pricing rule to avoid “absurd results” when natural gas prices soar as they did during February’s outages. (S&P Global)
• Houston-area lawmakers respond to questions about what they are doing to reform Texas’ electricity market as they consider more than 200 proposed bills to change the system. (KPRC)
SOLAR:
• An Arkansas city invests in solar power by spurning power purchase agreements in favor of trading land for outright ownership of a solar farm. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
• Mississippi regulators approve a 1.3 MW solar farm with 5 MW of battery storage capacity. (Mississippi Business Journal)
• A renewables company tests an uncertain Texas energy market still reeling from February’s outages by seeking equity for three solar farms, with a total 520 MW of power already contracted. (Bloomberg)
PIPELINES:
• Federal regulators approve operations for a 24-mile gas pipeline to a Louisiana export facility currently under construction. (Natural Gas Intelligence)
• West Virginia lawmakers advance a resolution of support for the long-canceled Atlantic Coast Pipeline. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
BIOMASS: Georgia residents organize against a biomass plant that would involve mining of heavy minerals near the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. (Brunswick News)
***SPONSORED LINK: NCSEA’s Making Energy Work webinar series is back by popular demand! Join hundreds of attendees from across the country to get the latest scoop on trending clean energy topics sweeping the industry. Register today, where energy policy gets to work: www.makingenergywork.com/2021.***
OIL & GAS: A Louisiana man pushes for new safety measures around the storage of oil tanks after a February explosion killed his 14-year-old daughter. (DeSmog)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• A new electric vehicle charger goes into service at a food co-op in Kentucky. (WUKY)
• A North Carolina church is one of 29 sites that will receive an electric vehicle charger funded by a state settlement with Volkswagen and the EPA. (Carteret County News-Times)