COAL:
• West Virginia regulators approve federally required wastewater upgrades at three coal-fired plants that will keep them open until 2040 even though Kentucky and Virginia regulators previously ruled against the upgrades. (Charleston Gazette-Mail, Associated Press)
• West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and one of his family’s coal companies agree to address environmental violations urged by the EPA after it pursued legal action over the company’s repeated failure to address the issues. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

WIND: A clean energy company can continue work on a wind farm in western Virginia after a zoning board agrees to extend its permit, but the case may still end in court. (Roanoke Times)

SOLAR:
• A company that wants to build an 800 MW farm in rural Virginia faces skepticism from county commissioners and a lawsuit that claims it improperly secured a lease to some of the proposed site. (WDBJ)
• Kentucky regulators set new net metering rates for LG&E and Kentucky Utilities Co., rejecting a proposal to end net metering and drop the value of solar power by 75%. (WDRB)
• Savannah, Georgia, begins the process of contracting to add solar panels at 22 municipal buildings that will be financed with solar energy procurement agreements. (The Current)
• An energy company completes construction and begins operations at an 83 MW solar farm in Texas. (Solar Builder)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• General Motors reaches an agreement with Korean battery maker LG Electronics to recover most of the $2 billion in costs for a recall of Chevrolet Bolt batteries ahead of a partnership to build battery plants in Tennessee and Ohio. (Bloomberg)
• A Tennessee county pursues a grant from the Tennessee Valley Authority to train workers to install and maintain electric vehicle chargers. (Southern Standard)

 OIL & GAS:
• An energy consultant tells a forum in New Orleans that turbulence in natural gas prices across the globe marks the ongoing creation of competitive markets and not an energy system breakdown. (Natural Gas Intelligence)
• A Texas utility company is criticized for an announced timeline to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions that ignores customers’ use of natural gas. (E&E News)

EMISSIONS: Southern Co. looks to the completion of its over-budget and long-delayed Alvin W. Vogtle Nuclear Plant expansion, while Dominion Energy sees nuclear relicensing and offshore wind as pathways to achieve net-zero carbon dioxide and methane emissions by 2050. (S&P Global)

ENERGY EFFICIENCY: Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia rank in the bottom five states in the country for energy efficiency, helped perhaps by low electricity rates, a study from a personal finance company finds. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

CRYPTOCURRENCY: Texas competes with Georgia, Kentucky and New York to attract Bitcoin mining companies with inexpensive and preferably renewable energy. (Texas News Today)

COMMENTARY: The University of Florida defends its decision to build a new natural gas-fueled steam plant by saying it will reduce the campus’s overall carbon emissions by 25%, can incorporate hydrogen and will be supplemented by solar power. (Gainesville Sun)

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.