COAL: An Appalachian coal company’s 2019 bankruptcy spotlights how coal companies use the practice to shed their environmental obligations, leaving behind mines that tend to create more environmental damage than those that haven’t gone through bankruptcy proceedings. (Mountain State Spotlight/ProPublica)

ALSO: South Carolina utility Santee Cooper wants to delay the retirement of a coal-fired power plant from 2027 to at least 2030. (Post and Courier)

SOLAR:
• Solar manufacturer Enel names Oklahoma as the leading candidate to host a new solar panel factory the company announced last year. (Reuters)
• Google will use the power from a new 100 MW solar farm in Tennessee to power data centers in Tennessee and Alabama. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)
• Thirty Georgia electric cooperatives share solar power produced by a newly completed 106 MW solar farm. (Jackson Progress-Argus)
• After submitting and then withdrawing plans for a solar project two years ago, Virginia landowners return with a new application for a solar facility that includes significant landscaping and a plan to partner with local bee farmers. (Madison County Eagle)
• A 440-acre solar project in Kentucky seems to have stalled, along with two additional projects by the same company that grid manager PJM now lists as suspended. (WJRS)

WIND: Educational institutions in Louisiana and elsewhere scramble to train workers for offshore wind after a researcher projected the industry will need more than 44,000 workers by 2030 and nearly 33,000 additional workers in supporting jobs. (The Lens)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Electronics company Siemens opens a Texas manufacturing hub to make electric vehicle chargers. (WFAA)
• Electric vehicle advocates call for San Antonio, Texas, to install more fast chargers as it builds out charging infrastructure. (San Antonio Report)
• Georgia Power invests $5 million into electric mobility research at the University of Georgia. (WGAU)

EFFICIENCY:
• Virginia housing advocates decry Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s push to remove the state from a regional carbon market because it removes a funding source needed to weatherize existing homes and build more energy-efficient new ones. (Virginia Mercury)
• A Florida company acquires a German heat pump business as part of a $13.2 billion deal that gives it a larger stake in the transition to electrification. (Spectrum News)

PIPELINES: U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm’s letter of support for the Mountain Valley Pipeline sparks indignant reaction from environmentalists and members of Congress. (E&E News)

NUCLEAR: North Carolina lawmakers advance legislation to change language in state statutes from “renewable energy” to “clean energy,” easing the way for more nuclear power development. (WRAL)

UTILITIES:
• West Virginia regulators move forward with an audit of FirstEnergy utilities’ lobbying expenses after a related racketeering scandal in neighboring Ohio. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• The municipal utility in Jacksonville, Florida, adopts a plan to aim for 35% clean energy production and possibly retire a natural gas-fired plant by 2030. (Jacksonville Daily Record)

COMMENTARY: Louisiana leaders cannot rely on the state’s petrochemical manufacturing to remain a national leader in energy production, and must instead embrace carbon capture, “clean” ammonia and hydrogen, and electrification, writes an editorial board. (NOLA.com)

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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.