UTILITIES: The Tennessee Valley Authority resists cooperatives’ and critics’ efforts to push it to embrace more renewables, which make up less than 5% of its portfolio versus more than 75% that comes from coal, gas, and nuclear. (Sierra)

SOLAR:
• Texas residents complain about a six-month wait for an energy company to approve rooftop solar permits, resulting in solar installations that sit unused. (Houston Chronicle)
• Two Virginia community colleges add programs to train solar installers as regional school systems add more solar arrays. (Virginia Business)
• A North Carolina equipment manufacturer installs a 1 MW solar array at its headquarters to provide half of its energy needs. (Greensboro News & Record)
• An Arkansas county investigates the possibility of using solar energy to power its operations. (El Dorado News-Times)

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OIL & GAS: The company that plans to build a new natural gas-fired power plant with carbon capture in West Virginia credits the recent congressional climate package for making the project possible. (E&E News)

CLIMATE:
• Hurricane Fiona knocks out Puerto Rico’s power grid and rips up roads as it moves across the Caribbean. (Associated Press)
• Louisiana residents still wait for federal assistance in a small town struck by Hurricane Laura more than two years ago. (NOLA.com)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• The Biden administration approves plans by Georgia and Oklahoma to build electric vehicle chargers along interstates and major highways. (WXIA, KFOR)
• A Florida city begins purchasing electric vehicles for its municipal fleet. (Spectrum News)

PIPELINES: Three activists who participated in a “Trojan Duck” protest against the Mountain Valley Pipeline receive misdemeanor convictions and suspended jail sentences. (Roanoke Times)

TRANSITION: Berkshire Hathaway’s construction of a West Virginia solar facility to power an aerospace enterprise runs against the state’s coal-friendly politics, which have resulted in rising electricity rates for residents. (Forbes)

EMISSIONS: A new study by North Carolina researchers finds health care savings from reducing power generation’s emissions outweigh decarbonization costs, but Black and low-income communities will likely still face higher levels of air pollution and related health effects. (Mining.com)

BUSINESS: A company that designs new materials for lithium-ion batteries and another that recycles glass fiber reinforced plastics into wind turbine blades are among six eastern Tennessee startups vying for a $10,000 prize. (Knoxville News Sentinel)

POLITICS: Western Virginia climate activists travel to Washington, D.C., to lobby congressional representatives against the Mountain Valley Pipeline and legislation to complete its construction. (Southwest Times)

COMMENTARY:
• Leaders must turn the public’s growing concern about climate change into concrete action to decarbonize the economy and protect vulnerable populations from its impacts, writes a Texas professor. (Austin American-Statesman)
• Florida must seize opportunities to shift to renewables and fight climate change, or the extreme weather it’s already seeing will quickly worsen, write three activists. (Tampa Bay 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.