SOLAR: Kentucky officials and a Florida solar company announce plans to build an 800 MW solar farm on a former coal mine to sell power to electric vehicle maker Rivian, the Nature Conservancy and others. (Kentucky Lantern, news release)
ALSO:
• A West Virginia solar company expands its collaborative program to the southern part of the state, offering discounts to multiple buyers within the same area. (Huntington Herald-Dispatch)
• Mississippi residents organize against a planned 90 MW solar farm. (WDAM)
• Florida Power & Light purchases 3,400 acres with plans to build three solar farms in a Florida county. (Business Observer)
WIND: Oil and gas giants express interest in pursuing offshore wind energy as the federal government prepares to lease two areas off Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. (Houston Public Media)
OIL & GAS: Louisiana regulators order a year-and-a-half-old natural gas export facility to come into compliance after more than 2,000 permit deviations and more than 138 incidents in which it polluted more than it was allowed. (WWNO)
HYDROGEN: Federal regulators approve the sale of a West Virginia coal plant slated for closure to a company that plans to use it to make hydrogen. (Parkersburg News and Sentinel)
OVERSIGHT: President Trump’s former U.S. EPA head has been at work in Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration, producing a regulatory review template that’s being used in the state’s withdrawal from a regional carbon market. (Inside Climate News)
COAL: Texas residents express concerns about the state’s largest coal-fired power plant to the U.S. EPA after a study attributed almost 180 premature deaths a year to air pollution from the plant. (KTRK)
PIPELINES:
• North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper expresses opposition to the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s Southgate extension as federal regulators consider whether to give it more time to be built. (WUNC)
• Opponents of the Mountain Valley Pipeline ask the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold a lower court’s stays on construction of the long-delayed project. (Cardinal News)
CLIMATE:
• A Florida county commission in the Miami metro area introduces a bill to create workplace heat protections for roughly 80,000 people in construction and agriculture. (Miami Herald)
• Louisiana has been slow to provide protections for workers against extreme heat despite the fact it’s the top cause of weather-related deaths. (The Advocate)
• Ocean temperatures off Florida top 101 degrees, which could set a global record. (Washington Post)
STORAGE: A U.S. Energy Department official touts alternatives to conventional battery storage during a conference in Georgia as the department announces $30 million to help fund energy storage innovations. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
UTILITIES:
• Virginia regulators approve a monthly fee to pay for Dominion Energy’s participation in a regional carbon market despite the governor’s push to withdraw the state from it. (Virginia Mercury)
• A West Virginia university is notified its utilities will be shut off next week because of $776,598.70 in overdue payments. (WV Metro News)
ACTIVISM: A well-known advocate for social and environmental justice in North Carolina dies. (Winston-Salem Journal)
COMMENTARY: Despite its stability so far this summer, Texas’ state power grid faces record-breaking demand and tricky questions about how to ensure reliability as renewables boom and lawmakers try to incentivize construction of more fossil fuel-fired plants, write two analysts. (Bloomberg)
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