COAL ASH: Residents of Puerto Rico feel impatient for meaningful action to clean up toxic and radioactive coal ash spread across the island after a Virginia-based power company sold it as a cheap material for road construction. (Energy News Network/Rural News Network)

ALSO: 

SOLAR: A Virginia county delays approval of a 50 MW solar farm until it changes the details of its plans. (Winchester Star)

EFFICIENCY: Jacksonville, Florida, officials accuse a state energy efficiency program of predatory lending because homeowners who choose to pay for upgrades through an assessment on their property tax bills risk losing their homes. (Florida Times-Union)

CLIMATE: 

  • A report finds that reforms enacted by Florida lawmakers are driving down insurance litigation rates, but the state’s huge insurance costs are likely to grow because of rising inflation rates, reinsurance costs and the effects of climate change. (South Florida Sun Sentinel)
  • Catastrophe models developed when Hurricane Andrew struck Florida in 1992 marked the beginning of macro shifts in the insurance industry now resulting in soaring premiums and company withdrawals in places subject to climate-driven extreme weather. (Grist)

HYDROGEN: Florida Power & Light begins operations today at a “green hydrogen” plant even as opponents warn that scaling up the approach will be wasteful and ineffective. (Canary Media)

POLITICS: 

COAL: Researchers investigate a grass species that draws carbon from the atmosphere to feed microorganisms in the soil, which in turn might revive poor soil near coal mines. (Times West Virginian)

GRID: 

UTILITIES: More than a fifth of payments from a new Richmond, Virginia, city program that provides direct cash assistance to residents in need has gone toward utility bills. (Axios)

COMMENTARY: 

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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.