BUILDINGS: Amazon plans dozens of carbon-saving measures in its Virginia-based HQ2, prompting the U.S. Green Building Council to adopt some of the company’s innovations for next year’s LEED scorecard. (Energy News Network)

WIND: An energy company delays the start of construction on an onshore Virginia wind farm until next year, with completion now set for 2025, a decade after the project was first announced. (Roanoke Times)

SOLAR: A Texas airport receives a $3 million federal grant to install solar panels. (KVIA)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Atlanta-area school systems receive funding for electric school buses as some transition from propane. (WXIA)

STORAGE: A coastal North Carolina community equips each household with a 3 kW rooftop solar array and provides backup through a 62 kW community solar system and 255 kW battery system. (New York Times)

GRID:
• Texas’ state power grid withstands multiple days of triple-digit temperatures and record-breaking demand for electricity, even as power prices soared more than 800% over the weekend. (Bloomberg)
• Texas wind and solar operators warn a proposed requirement to upgrade grid technology could cripple the state’s renewables industry. (E&E News)
• An Alabama county opens emergency cooling centers after an electric cooperative experiences a massive outage. (WHNT)
• North Carolina receives an $18.5 million grant to upgrade and harden the electric grid to boost reliability and resilience. (Charlotte Observer)

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: A lawsuit by Louisiana’s attorney general shut down a U.S. EPA investigation into state officials’ failure to protect mostly Black residents from the petrochemical industry, and could dismantle a legal tool used in civil rights enforcement. (Louisiana Illuminator)

CARBON CAPTURE: An oil and gas company moves a large drilling rig and platform to a Louisiana site as part of its controversial plans for a $4.5 billion hydrogen manufacturing complex with a substantial carbon capture component. (Louisiana Illuminator)

COAL: Advocates for a stronger silica exposure rule to protect against black lung prepare for a public hearing this week in West Virginia. (West Virginia Watch)

CLIMATE:
• Louisiana officials announce 16 people died from heat-related causes in June and July. (Louisiana Illuminator)
• Texas’ heat wave is expected to continue as the state enters “one of the hottest weeks of the year.” (Austin American-Statesman)
• Federal officials overseeing the reconstruction of a Florida military base leveled by 2018’s Hurricane Michael hope it will serve as a model for other bases affected by climate change. (Washington Post)
• Two years after Hurricane Ida knocked out its power and safe drinking water, a Louisiana island sees a construction boom fueled largely by wealthy out-of-towners that threatens to displace longtime residents. (NOLA.com)

MINERALS: Federal officials award another $500,000 to a Virginia project that searches for rare earth elements and critical minerals in waste coal, coal ash and underground water brought to the surface by oil and gas wells. (Cardinal News)

PUBLIC LANDS: The U.S. Energy Department announces it will repurpose land in South Carolina and four other states for renewable energy development. (news release, Carlsbad Current Argus)

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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.