As U.S. shifts toward renewables, TVA goes big on gas

OIL & GAS: As the U.S. shifts toward renewables, the Tennessee Valley Authority doubles down on gas generation with eight newly proposed gas-fired plants since 2020, including a planned 500 MW natural gas-fired power plant in Mississippi. (WPLN)

ALSO:

• Georgia residents complain that Georgia Power’s plans to build three new natural gas-fired units at a power plant would raise costs and affect their ability to pay their power bills, especially so soon after the utility expanded a nuclear plant. (Georgia Recorder)
• Virginia residents in the Richmond metro area organize to oppose Dominion Energy’s plans to build a new natural gas-fired plant, while others discuss the city’s proposal to build a solar farm on an old landfill. (WTVR, WRIC)

WIND:

• A 184.5 MW wind farm begins operations as Mississippi’s first utility-scale wind project, with the energy going to power Amazon data centers and logistics hubs. (Electrek)
• A wind farm that became operational in 2017 still remains North Carolina’s sole venture into wind energy, but a growing number of entities are pursuing onshore and offshore projects. (WSOC)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: An all-Republican school board in North Carolina votes to cancel a contract with Duke Energy for three electric school buses. (Port City Daily)

PIPELINES: Virginia regulators fine the Mountain Valley Pipeline $30,500 for nearly two dozen erosion and sediment control violations during a three-month period before it began operations. (Cardinal News)

NUCLEAR: The founder of a failed Appalachian indoor farming company has re-emerged as the cofounder and CEO of a startup that wants to deploy a 6 GW nuclear-fission reactor fleet by the mid-2030s. (Canary Media)

EFFICIENCY: A study finds nearly half of families in Memphis, Tennessee, face high energy burdens, paying at least 6% of their income toward energy bills due to low income, inefficient housing and outdated appliances. (Citizen Tribune)

COAL: Alabama receives a $20 million federal grant to rehabilitate abandoned coal mines. (WIAT)

GRID: Texas officials launch an investigation of CenterPoint Energy over poor communication and its slow pace of response to power outages caused by Hurricane Beryl. (Texas Tribune)

OVERSIGHT:

• Georgia has no state-level office or agency that addresses climate and energy policy, but instead a variety of elected officials and boards that oversee and influence those decisions. (Grist)
• The administrator of the U.S. EPA’s Mid-Atlantic office discusses the difficulty of controlling nonpoint pollution from agriculture and stormwater runoff in the complicated effort to clean up the Chesapeake Bay. (Inside Climate News)

CLIMATE:

• Despite record-breaking heat, more than 70% of Texas prisons still don’t have air conditioning, even after an analysis showed 41 people died in uncooled prisons last year. (Houston Chronicle)
• A loophole in President Biden’s proposal to protect workers from heat would exempt public-sector workers in states without protections, including much of the Southeast and the Midwest. (E&E News)
• A new report finds climate change is reversing trends that led growing numbers of people to move to Florida, Texas and other states in the Sun Belt. (Yahoo Finance)
• Virginia receives $150 million in federal climate grants to cut carbon emissions from coal mines and landfills, and for carbon capture projects in wetlands. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

POLITICS:

• Louisiana’s Republican U.S. senators and other Congress members on the Gulf Coast push back against efforts to protect an endangered whale in the Gulf of Mexico, arguing that restricting development would harm the economy. (Verite News)
• The West Virginia Coal Association endorses the state attorney general’s push to block the U.S. EPA’s proposed rule to require coal and new natural gas-fired power plants to control 90% of their emissions. (State Journal)