Feds finalize protections on 28 million acres in Alaska

PUBLIC LANDS: The U.S. Interior Department finalizes prohibitions on new mining, drilling and other development on 28 million acres of federal land in Alaska, reversing a Trump-era policy. (Alaska Beacon)

SOLAR:

• The federal Bureau of Land Management greenlights the 200 MW Dry Lake East solar-plus-battery storage project in southern Nevada. (News 3)
• A Colorado firm secures financing to install 2.8 MW of rooftop solar on seven multi-tenant commercial properties across California. (news release)
• Stanford University researchers develop a scalable method of producing more efficient solar cells using tungsten instead of silicon. (Interesting Engineering)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:

• Denver officials release a new round of electric bicycle rebate vouchers and say nearly 9,000 people have participated in the popular program so far. (CBS Colorado)
• Washington state officials say they have issued more than 1,000 electric vehicle rebates aimed at low and middle-income residents in the program’s first month of operation. (Washington News Service)
• Arizona’s transportation department selects firms to build and operate electric vehicle charging stations along interstate highways. (news release)

MICROGRIDS: Colorado utilities look to install microgrids in urban and rural areas to increase resilience to extreme weather and wildfires and help isolated areas during outages. (Colorado Newsline)

OIL & GAS: 

• Colorado advocates push back on proposed draft rules to address oil and gas drilling’s cumulative impacts, saying regulators watered them down to accommodate industry. (Colorado Sun)
• Republican-led Western states join a motion asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block the Biden administration’s rule aimed at reducing oil and gas facilities’ methane emissions. (Common Dreams)
• The Navajo Nation and U.S. Energy Department partner to identify, plug and clean up abandoned oil and gas and uranium wells. (news release)

HYDROPOWER: Crews finish removing two hydropower dams on the Klamath River near the Oregon-California border, allowing salmon to swim freely in the stream for the first time in over a century. (Associated Press)

MINING: Nevada advocates, residents and lawmakers continue to debate over proposed battery material mining projects across the state. (Pahrump Valley Times)

UTILITIES: A federal appeals court rules in favor of Pacific Gas & Electric in a long-running dispute with San Francisco over the city’s use of the utility’s distribution network. (RTO Insider, subscription)

COMMENTARY:

• A Colorado ski company executive argues that electrifying buildings is the most effective way to get to net-zero emissions in the long-term. (Writers on the Range)
• A California initiative is helping to advance clean energy by training contractors to install heat pumps. (CalNEXT, sponsored)