UTILITIES: Memphis, Tennessee, residents express anger and frustration over the Tennessee Valley Authority’s role in generating and moving toxic coal ash through majority Black neighborhoods as the city council considers a 20-year contract to continue sourcing power from the federal utility. (Commercial Appeal)

PIPELINES:
• As anti-Mountain Valley Pipeline protestors demonstrate today in Washington, D.C., West Virginians are still divided on the project that U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin is pushing to complete. (Politico, NPR)
• Federal regulators approve the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s plan to stabilize sections on steep terrain through the Jefferson National Forest that have remained unfinished since a court rejected permits. (Roanoke Times)

WIND: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and environmentalists find themselves allied in a regulatory push to control costs and protect consumers from shouldering the expense of Dominion Energy’s planned offshore wind farm. (WRIC)

NUCLEAR:
• Duke Energy proposes adding 570 MW from modular nuclear reactors in its decarbonization plan for North Carolina. (Wilmington Star-News)
• Tennessee Valley Authority officials hope to extend operations at its largest nuclear plant for another 20 years, doubling the plant’s lifetime that was predicted when it first opened. (WPLN)
• The Tennessee Valley Authority and Tennessee public safety officials gear up for an emergency preparedness exercise next week around the Sequoyah nuclear plant. (Chattanoogan)

CLIMATE:
• Experts say Jackson, Mississippi’s ongoing water crisis demonstrates the fragility of water systems across the country to worsening flooding and climate change. (NPR)
• Texans reel from repeated extreme weather events as experts warn of climate change’s “catastrophic” implications for mental health. (Texas Tribune)
• An Appalachian cultural center is still trying to salvage its archives after historic flooding swept through Kentucky in July. (NPR)

TRANSITION: Young rural Virginians who might once have gone into the coal industry increasingly look for opportunities in clean energy, especially as the federal climate package accelerates the transition to renewables. (Guardian)

OVERSIGHT:
• Virginia lawmakers fail to fill a vacancy on the three-member board that regulates a wide range of energy projects and business interests. (Virginia Mercury, Associated Press)
• Nominees to the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority are interviewed by a U.S. Senate panel, whose chair urges the utility to decarbonize by leaning into energy efficiency and renewables. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

HYDROGEN: Federal officials award $50 million to a 25-organization coalition to develop an offshore wind-powered hydrogen energy industry cluster in Louisiana. (Biz New Orleans)

POLITICS: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declines to address reports that Florida Power & Light potentially violated state laws banning the use of straw donors to shield the true source of campaign funds — including $25,000 for his own 2018 campaign. (Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald)

COMMENTARY: “We in Appalachia are done with being a sacrifice zone” — a Virginia activist rails against U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin’s side deal to trade completion of the Mountain Valley Pipeline for his support of climate spending. (The Nation)

More from the Energy News Network: Midwest | Southeast | Northeast | West

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.