ADVOCACY: Students at the University of Richmond push administrators to make it the first Virginia college and among the first in the Southeast to divest from fossil fuels. (Energy News Network)
PIPELINES:
• U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm calls for federal regulators to proceed “expeditiously” on the Mountain Valley Pipeline, likely seeking to assuage U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin but infuriating pipeline opponents. (E&E News, Common Dreams)
• The U.S. Supreme Court revives a lawsuit filed by six Virginia property owners against the Mountain Valley Pipeline challenging federal delegation of eminent domain authority. (Roanoke Times)
COAL: West Virginia regulators order power companies to continue negotiating over the potential sale of a coal-fired power plant that will remain open in the meantime, but hold off on approving a surcharge to keep it operational. (WV Metro News, Parkersburg News and Sentinel)
SOLAR:
• NextEra Energy purchases nearly 1,600 acres in Louisiana with plans to build a 150 MW solar farm. (Acadiana Advocate)
• A company plans to encourage restorative meadow habitat around a Virginia solar farm planned for 650 acres that were previously used for tree farming (WVTF)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• An Austin, Texas, transit agency partners with a renewables company to provide solar-powered charging infrastructure for its 200 electric buses. (KVUE)
• Florida Power & Light unveils a mobile electric-vehicle charging station that can be used during power outages, hurricane evacuations and in other scenarios. (Palm Beach Post)
OIL & GAS:
• Investigators blame a 14,000-gallon oil spill in a Texas bay on an unemptied line fractured by subfreezing temperatures. (Corpus Christi Caller Times)
• Entergy breaks ground on a 1,215 MW gas-fired power plant in Texas. (KFDM, news release)
GRID: The U.S. Energy Department announces a $3 billion conditional loan to finance a virtual power plant program that would span most of the country, with a special focus on Puerto Rico. (E&E News)
NUCLEAR: Southeast Congress members tour Georgia Power’s ongoing Plant Vogtle expansion and say the long-delayed, over-budget project can be used as a model for new nuclear power development. (Augusta Chronicle)
COAL ASH: Dominion Energy reports that it’s begun coal ash cleanup at a Virginia power plant, making a total of four ash pond cleanups the utility is conducting in the state. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
TRANSITION: A coalition of nonprofits in Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia reports $90 million is lined up for green energy projects in Appalachia, including the reuse of abandoned factories and coal mines. (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
CLIMATE: New research reinforces previous findings warning of high sea level rise along North Carolina and the Southeast and Gulf coasts. (Wilmington StarNews)
HYDROGEN: At least two groups in the Southeast and Appalachia submit final applications to U.S. Energy Department to become clean hydrogen hubs. (S&P Global)
COMMENTARY:
• A Tennessee professor calls on Congress to pass legislation streamlining permitting for new mines and other energy projects to reduce U.S. reliance on international sources of uranium, rare earths and other minerals. (Knoxville News Sentinel)
• An energy columnist tries to untangle whether hydrogen fuel is critical to large-scale decarbonization or if it’s an over-hyped boondoggle, coming to the conclusion it’s a mix of both. (Virginia Mercury)
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