ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Republican-voting Southeastern states receive tens of billions in federal and private funding for electric vehicles, even as their political leaders deny climate change and decry government spending as wasteful. (New York Times)

ALSO:
• BMW will spend $1 billion to expand its South Carolina factory to make electric vehicles and $700 million for a battery plant. (Post and Courier)
• Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirms the company’s plans to build a lithium refinery on the Texas Gulf Coast as the company sees its third-quarter profits more than double from a year ago. (Bloomberg, Associated Press)

STORAGE:
• The Southeast accounts for half of the 12 states receiving $2.8 billion in grants from the Biden administration to boost production of electric vehicle batteries. (Associated Press)
• Louisiana secures $320 million from the federal infrastructure package to grow lithium-ion battery-related production at two facilities as it aims to build a stake in the electric vehicle supply chain. (Lafayette Daily Advertiser)
• Dominion Energy acquires a 15.7 MW battery storage facility in Virginia as part of its shift toward renewables. (Energy Storage News)

SOLAR: An Alabama city council votes to allow its municipal utility to buy power from a solar plant under construction, marking the first time the utility has purchased power from an entity other than the Tennessee Valley Authority. (AL.com)

RENEWABLES: Duke Energy asks South Carolina regulators to approve two programs to let business and residential customers purchase credits from its renewable projects to offset their carbon emissions. (Charlotte Business Journal, subscription)

OIL & GAS:
• Experts at a Louisiana energy conference predict a bright future for the state’s oil and natural gas industry because of the new technological developments and the chemical manufacturing industry’s reliance on it. (The Advocate)
• The president of a Louisiana oil and gas trade association calls for the state industry to embrace carbon reduction through carbon capture but also through an emphasis on lower-carbon oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico. (Houma Courier)

CARBON CAPTURE: A Texas pipeline company intends to use conduits it owns along the Mississippi River for future carbon capture projects with other companies in the heavy-industry, high-emissions area around the river in Louisiana. (Bloomberg)

COAL: West Virginia researchers tell state lawmakers they’ve had encouraging results in their attempts to produce valuable rare earth elements and other critical minerals from coal waste. (Charleston Gazette-Mail, subscription)

CRYPTOCURRENCY: Federal lawmakers lead a probe investigating Bitcoin miners’ effects on the Texas grid, energy prices, and whether they’ve benefitted from a state program that pays large users to dial back during times of high demand. (Utility Dive)

CLIMATE:
• Virginia officials begin a reevaluation of the state’s septic regulations amid flooding, extreme weather and other effects of climate change. (Virginia Mercury)
• Experts warn North Carolina used-car buyers to be wary of an influx of Florida cars flooded by Hurricane Ian. (WTVD)

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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.