UTILITIES: The Southeast lags in the clean energy transition as its utilities struggle to squeeze rooftop solar and electric vehicles into a business model that’s traditionally been focused on investing in new assets and then passing the costs on to customers. (E&E News)

ALSO: Georgia regulators consider Georgia Power’s proposed long-term plan, which critics say doesn’t include enough renewables, doesn’t close enough coal-fired plants and leaves too much toxic coal ash sitting in groundwater. (Georgia Recorder)

POLITICS: U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia effectively kills Democrats’ last hopes of passing a climate package when he tells party leaders he won’t support new spending on climate change. (Washington Post)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Auto manufacturer Ford and Korean battery maker SK finalize plans to build an electric vehicle battery plant next to Ford’s electric truck factory in Tennessee. (Commercial Appeal)
• Electric vehicle maker Canoo’s deal to supply vehicles to Walmart for a delivery service prohibits it from doing business with Amazon. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
• EV maker Canoo says it’s sending one of its electric vehicles to the U.S. Army for analysis and demonstration. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
• Democratic Oklahoma lawmakers call for $700 million meant to be used to attract an EV battery factory to instead be spent on education and inflation relief. (KOCO)

COAL: Coal miner health advocates cheer proposed legislation from five U.S. Senate Democrats to streamline the notoriously arduous benefits process for black lung-afflicted miners and their survivors. (Charleston Gazette-Mail, subscription)

GRID:
• Many Texans respond to the state grid manager’s repeated requests to conserve energy, but some blame state leaders and call for more reform. (Texas Tribune)
• Texas’ grid manager pays crypto mining firms and other energy-intensive businesses to power down amid a summer heat wave. (Business Insider)
• A Texas city is still adjusting to its relatively new experience of life on the state power grid after joining several years ago. (Texas Tribune)

NUCLEAR:
• A Mississippi nuclear plant that supplies a third of Entergy New Orleans’ power goes offline again after being down for much of the spring, and utility officials say the closures play a role in high power bills. (WWL-TV, WVUE)
• Work crews prepare nuclear reactors used in research for demolition in eastern Tennessee. (WATE)

PIPELINES: Texas landowners gear up to fight construction of a planned 490-mile natural gas pipeline. (KTBC)

OIL & GAS:
• Developers accelerate efforts to build new liquified natural gas terminals on the U.S. Gulf Coast to take advantage of the closure of a facility that had accounted for a fifth of exports. (Engineering News-Record)
• Three natural gas producers with operations in the Permian Basin join an international methane emissions reporting program that until now had been largely based in Europe. (S&P Global)

MINERALS: A Texas company launches around a new way to refine lithium that separates it from brine rather than using chemical extraction. (KVUE)

CLIMATE: The last of 44 people reported missing after heavy flooding in southwestern Virginia has been accounted for, but damage to communities is reported to be “apocalyptic.” (Cardinal News)

RENEWABLES: A Texas-based renewable energy project developer uses his experiences in the clean energy transition for cartoons he posts on social media. (Canary Media)

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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.