PIPELINES: The Mountain Valley Pipeline withdraws eminent domain actions for land along a proposed extension from Virginia into North Carolina, but leaves the door cracked for the future. (Virginia Mercury)

SOLAR:
• Tampa, Florida’s electric utility announces it will add six new solar projects by the end of 2025. (Florida Politics)
• Construction has reached the halfway point on the second of three planned 75 MW solar plants in a Florida county. (NorthEscambia.com)
• A Virginia elementary school adds solar panels that will provide about a third of its energy. (WRIC)

STORAGE: An energy company sells a 15.7 MW battery storage project in Virginia to Dominion Energy. (Greentech Lead)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• South Carolina U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham pledges to hold a hearing on electric vehicle batteries and sourcing issues if Republicans win control of the U.S. Senate in next month’s midterms. (Reuters)
• Arkansas moves to grow its electric vehicle charging network from a current count of about 170 charging stations, but motorists likely won’t start seeing new stations until at least 2024. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
• Louisiana’s attorney general responds to a Tesla lawsuit by defending the state’s prohibition on direct-to-consumer car sales as a needed layer of protection for car buyers. (NOLA.com, subscription)
• A company breaks ground on an electric vehicle battery recycling and manufacturing facility in Kentucky. (news release)

RENEWABLE GAS: BP pays $4.1 billion to acquire a Houston-based energy company that captures natural gas emissions from landfills and farms. (KRIV)

GRID: Texas’ standalone grid and a regional grid in the south-central U.S. face wintertime power supply risks, but have implemented some reforms since a 2021 winter storm caused widespread outages. (Utility Dive)

CARBON CAPTURE: A New Orleans-based investigative reporter discusses growing momentum and opposition around carbon capture technology. (Texas Standard)

NUCLEAR: The Tennessee Valley Authority searches for more potential sites to build small modular nuclear reactors after winning a permit for its first in eastern Tennessee. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

CLIMATE: Satellite images reveal how drought has pushed water levels on the Mississippi River and its tributaries to record lows. (CNN)

UTILITIES: Independent South Carolina power producers announce a plan to diversify their energy supply instead of purchasing power from a natural gas-fired power plant planned by state-owned utility Santee Cooper. (Power Engineering)

EMISSIONS: Florida officials say the state’s emissions are the lowest on record, despite seasonal effects from Saharan dust and wildfires. (Florida Politics)

COMMENTARY:
• Reversing climate change to relieve extreme weather events affecting the Mississippi River should be a national priority given its importance as an inland waterway, writes a columnist. (Bloomberg)
• Florida power outages that followed Hurricane Ian point toward the necessity of burying power lines to improve grid resilience, writes a land developer. (News-Press)
• Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s aspirational proposal to build a small nuclear reactor in Southwest Virginia ignores likely opposition, as well as the technology’s lack of precedent, writes an editorial board. (Roanoke Times)

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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.