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EV maker Canoo declares bankruptcy, halts operations

By Mason Adams

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ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Electric vehicle company Canoo announces it will file for bankruptcy and cease operations, despite previous efforts to secure $100 million in Oklahoma incentives and build its headquarters in Arkansas. (Reuters, Oklahoman, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

ALSO:

  • Officials with a planned Virginia electric vehicle battery factory and a trucking company that was awarded $208 million to upgrade its plants to make EVs say they’re still unsure how President Trump’s freeze of federal clean energy funding will affect their plans. (Cardinal News)
  • The United Auto Workers dismisses Volkswagen’s latest contract offer for workers at its Chattanooga, Tennessee, plant as ​“nothing to brag about” and unlikely to account for future inflation. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

NUCLEAR: South Carolina’s state-owned utility begins looking for proposals to restart construction on a pair of nuclear reactors that was halted in 2017 after the plant’s owners had already spent $9 billion before its builder declared bankruptcy. (Post and Courier; South Carolina Daily Gazette)

GRID: The Tennessee Valley Authority saw record power demand during this week’s winter storm and cold snap, but credits $430 million in investments for keeping the grid stable. (WBBJ)

SOLAR: The leaders of a rural North Carolina county already home to 41 solar farms begin to discuss a possible moratorium after approving the expansion of a 700-acre project. (Border Belt Independent)

STORAGE: The head of a battery materials company announces his departure amid its efforts to secure more than $50 million in tax incentives and build a Tennessee plant. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

OIL & GAS:

  • Congressional Republicans are hoping new oil and gas revenues will pay for President Trump’s proposed tax cuts and spending initiatives, but experts warn production is already at record highs and new lease sales have been disappointing. (E&E News)
  • A Virginia planning commission recommends against rezoning and permitting a gas-fired power plant and data center complex. (Chatham Star-Tribune)

RENEWABLE GAS: An energy company contracts a wastewater firm to build a landfill-to-gas facility in Georgia. (news release)

WIND: President Trump’s order to halt all new federal leases and permits for wind energy doesn’t seem to affect Dominion Energy’s offshore wind farm under construction near Virginia, but experts say it could potentially open the door for federal action against the project. (Virginian-Pilot, WHRO)

EMISSIONS: West Virginia’s attorney general joins a multi-state challenge of the U.S. EPA’s proposed ​“methane tax” on fossil fuel producers. (WV News)

UTILITIES: A Virginia electric cooperative announces its new president and CEO. (Potomac Local News)

COMMENTARY: Former U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm points to a new West Virginia battery factory as evidence of how the Biden administration’s clean energy package sparked a ​“manufacturing renaissance,” and warns that Trump’s rollbacks will cede that progress to China. (New York Times)

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