CARBON CAPTURE: The U.S. Energy Department awards Louisiana and Texas roughly $600 million each to develop direct air capture hubs intended to remove more than 1 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. (The Advocate, Associated Press)

STORAGE: A consultant projects a Kentucky county will gain 22,000 new residents attracted to jobs at two electric vehicle battery plants now under construction. (WKYU)

SOLAR:
• A solar company selects Louisiana to build a $1.1 billion facility that will make solar panels with all American-made components. (Louisiana Illuminator)
• An automotive supplier partners with a solar company and electric cooperative on a Texas solar project expected to be complete by year’s end. (Seguin Today)

WIND: An amateur inventor in San Antonio, Texas, claims he’s solved the problem of excess voltage generation to make small, consumer-scale wind turbines feasible. (Texas Monthly)

COAL ASH: Georgia environmentalists say the U.S. EPA’s rejection of Alabama’s coal-ash program because it allows coal ash to mingle with groundwater should lead to tighter scrutiny of Georgia Power’s proposed coal ash storage plans. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

COAL: Coal miners testify at West Virginia hearings in favor of strengthening federal silica dust exposure standards to reduce black lung cases. (West Virginia Watch)

PIPELINES: Protesters walk onto two Mountain Valley Pipeline construction sites in Virginia to disrupt work and further delay the embattled project. (WSLS)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Electric vehicle maker VinFast partners with a North Carolina community college to train many of the 7,500 workers the company seeks to hire at its pending factory. (Raleigh News & Observer)

GRID:
• Administrative problems and overgrown vegetation around power lines are causing a rural Mississippi municipal utility to repeatedly lose power, generating 70% of the complaints the Tennessee Valley Authority has received this year. (NBC News)
• Orlando, Florida’s municipal utility urges customers to moderate their air conditioning use after it sees record-breaking demand three times in the past week. (Orlando Sentinel)
• Tampa Electric reports new records for summer electricity use for two consecutive days. (WTVT)
• Federal officials investigate incidents at a Texas power plant involving an explosion that killed a contractor and workers who were exposed to hazardous airborne contaminants. (KBTX)

UTILITIES:
• Even after a different buyer purchased a West Virginia coal plant, FirstEnergy-controlled subsidiaries indicate they’ll seek to recover at least $350,000 for merely considering buying the plant. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• Residents of a Florida community complain about an electric cooperative because of numerous momentary outages that have fried appliances and affected their businesses. (WFTX)

CLIMATE:
• The human toll from record-breaking heat in Florida is difficult to track because hospitals don’t release their counts of heat hospitalizations and deaths, and official records often are drawn narrowly. (Miami Herald)
• Forecasters increase the likelihood of an above-normal hurricane season because of warm Atlantic temperatures, projecting 14 to 21 named storms. (Texas Tribune, Inside Climate News)

NUCLEAR: Oklahoma officials eye fusion experiments in California as they seek to grow the state’s own fusion programs and attract companies to grow the nuclear industry there. (Norman Transcript)

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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.