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WIND: A student wind turbine competition inspires a Virginia high-schooler to pursue an engineering degree in hopes of a career designing the next generation of offshore wind turbines. (Energy News Network) 

ALSO: The first American-built offshore wind substation is completed and being shipped from the Texas coast to a facility off New York. (Offshore Wind)

EMISSIONS:
• A pair of gas turbines at a Louisiana power plant emit more carbon dioxide than any other units in the U.S., data show, but would be exempt from the EPA’s draft rule for power plant emissions because they don’t run frequently enough. (E&E News)
• A judge blocks the U.S. EPA’s rejection of how Arkansas planned to implement new standards for ozone emissions, raising hopes for 18 other states whose plans also were turned down. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

SOLAR:
• A Virginia city delays voting on a proposed solar farm after hours of a public hearing in which speakers argued both for and against it. (WHSV)
• Numerous North Carolina solar customers express frustration because their panels don’t work correctly and the company that installed them has now shut down and declared bankruptcy. (WFMY)

OIL & GAS:
• Oklahoma officials project a more than $18 billion economic impact in the first decade after construction of the first major oil refinery planned for the U.S. since 1977. (Journal Record)
• Shell restarts oil deliveries from a Texas pipeline that’s been closed for a month due to an oil spill in April. (Reuters)

COAL: A California company enters discussions to buy a West Virginia coal–fired power plant slated for closure and run it on hydrogen generated as a byproduct of its graphite production operation. (Parkersburg News and Sentinel)

COAL ASH: A Virginia county hires a consultant to review Dominion Energy’s plans to resolve groundwater contamination from coal ash ponds at a nearby power plant. (Inside NoVA)

NUCLEAR:
• A nuclear energy company plans to relaunch its collaboration with a Virginia community college to train nuclear technicians. (Cardinal News)
• Kentucky hosts its first meeting of a state workgroup to discuss potential nuclear power development. (Hoptown Chronicle)

BIOGAS: A Virginia gas company partners with a regional water authority to turn methane from a wastewater treatment plant into renewable natural gas. (WFXR)

UTILITIES:
• Dominion Energy’s plans to cut palmetto trees in the path of its power lines alarms South Carolina residents who worry about the loss of wildlife habitat and symbolic damage to the state tree. (Charleston Post and Courier)
• A conservative group’s poll finds more than 80% North Carolina voters want to study changes to allow for more competition and consumer choice among energy providers. (WRAL) 

CLIMATE: A report by an economic research firm names six U.S. metro areas on the Carolina coast as having economies most exposed to acute physical hazards from climate change. (Wilmington StarNews)

COMMENTARY:
• An Arkansas city’s embrace of a planned hydrogen plant underscores the creative thinking and concern for the future needed to chart the clean energy transition, writes an editorial board. (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
• The U.S. EPA’s proposed power plant emission rules represent a threat to fossil fuel-fired power plants, energy bills and Oklahoma’s “all of the above” approach to energy generation, writes a state regulator. (Oklahoman)

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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.