TRANSITION: A company that promoted indoor greenhouses to replace Kentucky’s dwindling coal industry attracted widespread acclaim and coverage but fell short of its promises to deliver high-quality produce and rural employment. (Grist/Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting)

ALSO: A western Virginia town adds a methane conversion plant and increasingly focuses on green manufacturing as it seeks to reinvent itself as a sustainable, solar-friendly locality. (Cardinal News)

SOLAR: 

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: 

  • Electric vehicle maker Canoo begins operations at its new Oklahoma factory by producing one vehicle per day. (Journal Record)
  • As some automakers pull back on the electric vehicle transition amid low demand, Hyundai barrels forward with a new plant in South Korea and its $5.44 billion vehicle and battery factory under construction in Georgia. (The Street)
  • As Hyundai and its suppliers develop factories in Georgia, a regional workforce study predicts a Savannah-area worker shortage for new industrial jobs by 2025. (Georgia Public Broadcasting)
  • Georgia uses workarounds to offer companies like Rivian economic incentives despite a constitutional prohibition on government entities providing a good, service or property without an equitable return. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, subscription)

WIND: A recently discovered whale species is at the center of a growing debate over a federal agency’s plan to designate 28,000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico as critical habitat and potentially bar oil and gas drilling there. (E&E News)

OIL & GAS: 

CARBON CAPTURE: A city in southwestern Virginia’s coal-producing region receives a $4.29 million federal grant to study development of a carbon dioxide storage hub. (Cardinal News)

GRID: U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will tour a Louisiana microgrid project that installs solar and battery storage in underserved neighborhoods. (Louisiana Illuminator)

UTILITIES: Dominion Energy reaches a tentative settlement with ratepayer, environmental and other groups to keep its base rates stable for the next two years while increasing its allowable profit. (Virginia Mercury)

POLITICS: Louisiana’s Republican governor-elect denounces his predecessor’s carbon action plan and similar policies as “extremely destructive at this time, on the economy and certainly on the backs of working people.” (Louisiana Radio Network)

COMMENTARY: A pastor calls for better control and regulation of coal dust that affects the health of nearby communities near export terminals in coastal Virginia. (Virginian-Pilot)

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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.