GRID: A pair of former Virginia bureaucrats turned private-sector consultants push a plan endorsed by state Gov. Glenn Youngkin to transform 65,000 acres of minelands into an energy complex to include solar-powered data centers cooled by mine water, as well as test sites for other energy sources. (Energy News Network)

STORAGE: Leaders of a North Carolina county with declining population and the state’s third highest unemployment rate hope a planned $1.4 billion sodium-ion battery factory will provide an economic jolt. (Carolina Public Press)

CLEAN ENERGY: Kentucky maneuvers to secure Century Aluminum’s planned new smelter — the first to be built in the U.S. in 45 years — but the plant could require at least a gigawatt’s worth of clean power each year to operate at full tilt, and the state has very little carbon-free capacity available right now. (Canary Media)

SOLAR: A renewables company secures Google to take all of the energy produced by a planned 128 MW solar farm and 100 MW battery system in Texas. (Renewables Now)

OIL & GAS: 

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Virginia is well-poised for the transition to electric vehicles, but the cost of installing chargers and purchasing electric vehicles for government fleets is slowing the process. (Virginia Mercury)

PIPELINES: 

COAL: Federal regulators fined a West Virginia coal mine 2,096 times since 2019 before a miner’s death there last week. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

GRID: Texas’ state grid operator complains U.S. EPA regulations limiting power plant emissions are acting as “handcuffs” that could endanger reliability. (Houston Chronicle)

UTILITIES: South Carolina regulators consider Duke Energy’s plan to build a transmission line to a new substation, extend the lives of its nuclear plants, and expand operations at a hydro-storage facility. (WLTX)

COMMENTARY: The new technology behind enhanced geothermal systems could be deployed to provide power to Virginia’s burgeoning data centers, though cost and a current lack of governmental support could slow the process of implementation, writes an energy columnist. (Virginia Mercury)

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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.