Southeast Energy News is one of five regional services published by the Energy News Network. Today’s edition was compiled by Mason Adams.
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SOLAR: Advocates of shared solar programs in Virginia grapple with setbacks that include Dominion Energy’s proposed $55 monthly fee and state lawmakers’ decision to kill three bills to expand shared solar to rural communities. (Energy News Network)
ALSO: Local governments and activist groups in Virginia and elsewhere seek to block sprawling solar power facilities in rural communities, and often succeed. (Reuters)
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ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Tesla delivers its first electric vehicles made at its new Texas manufacturing plant. (Wall Street Journal)
• Envirotech begins production of electric vehicles at an Arkansas factory. (Talk Business & Politics)
• EV maker Canoo delays the projected opening of an Oklahoma factory to 2024 while securing a $147,000 contract with NASA. (The Frontier, KOTV)
• San Antonio’s city council considers incentives for DeLorean Motor Company to open its planned headquarters in the city. (San Antonio Report, San Antonio Express News)
• The Tennessee Valley Authority’s manager of electric vehicle programs says chargers are getting faster, and will be placed about every 50 miles on Tennessee’s interstates and major highways. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)
COAL:
• Three West Virginia coal plants owned by American Electric Power subsidiaries sat idle for portions of 2021 even as state regulators considered and ultimately approved rate hikes to keep them open beyond 2028. (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
• West Virginia regulators approve a renewed mining permit for a coal company despite delinquency in paying civil penalties and more than 40 violations at its mines since 2021. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)
• A Georgia Power executive testifies that four coal ash ponds may continue to contaminate groundwater even after their planned closures. (Capitol Beat News Service)
HYDROGEN: Entergy moves forward with a plan to replace a natural gas-fired plant in Texas with a new plant that uses both gas and hydrogen. (KBMT)
POLITICS:
• U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin calls for a national push to produce rare earth elements needed for rechargeable batteries. (WV Metro News)
• Climate activists will converge on West Virginia’s Grant Town Power Plant this weekend to protest Manchin’s family business and failure to support climate legislation. (Tribune-Democrat)
• Virginia’s Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin issues an executive order to increase recycling and lure clean energy businesses, but also ends a push by his predecessor to ban single-use plastics. (WRIC)
CLIMATE: Texas A&M University abruptly closed a climate change modeling center in February after U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida pressured universities to cut ties with a Chinese institution affiliated with its research. (Houston Chronicle)
COMMENTARY:
• A journalist reflects on Houston’s legacy as a fossil fuel hub while considering how clean energy can offer environmental justice for low-income communities of color. (Los Angeles Times)
• The Mountain Valley Pipeline’s inability to obtain necessary environmental permits after years of review calls into question whether it will ever be completed, writes a climate activist. (Roanoke Times)
• Georgia lawmakers are haunted by the political influence of Georgia Power and its parent, the Southern Company during discussions of environmental policy, writes the owner of a newspaper chain. (Georgia Recorder)
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