SOLAR: A 485 MW Virginia solar farm is running smoothly with 12 full-time employees, several dozen contractors and a herd of sheep to clear vegetation despite community concern when it was first proposed in 2018. (Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: 

STORAGE: A battery supplier delays the start of operations at a planned South Carolina facility due to weaker-than-expected electric vehicle demand growth. (Utility Dive)

OIL & GAS: 

OVERSIGHT: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin appoints new members to an environmental justice council and state air board. (Virginia Mercury)

GRID: A Louisiana parish has been waiting for three years for funding from a federal agency to tear down and replace a power plant damaged by Hurricane Ida. (WWL)

UTILITIES: 

NUCLEAR:

CLIMATE: 

  • Officials struggle to track population shifts in a Louisiana city that lost an estimated 7% of its population after back-to-back hurricanes, revealing broader difficulties in recording climate-driven displacement. (Grist)
  • New research shows that tornadoes are shifting east, with a growing number in states like Alabama and West Virginia, and some scientists suspect climate change is a factor. (Inside Climate News)

POLITICS: Virginia’s attorney general joins a group of 24 attorneys general pressing financial institutions over whether they use a proxy advisory firm to prioritize greenhouse gas reductions and other environmental goals when voting on shareholder proposals. (Virginia Mercury)

COMMENTARY: A 34,400-gallon crude oil spill in Louisiana this summer stands as a reminder of how reliance on fossil fuel creates vulnerabilities, particularly in marginalized communities that are disproportionately affected by such incidents, writes a climate advocate. (Louisiana Illuminator)

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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.