Georgia residents to cover utility’s costly coal ash cleanup

Editor’s note: Texans installed more than 160,000 rooftop solar projects in the fourth quarter of 2021. An item in yesterday’s digest misstated the year.

COAL ASH: Two million Georgia households are on the hook to cover the cost of Georgia Power’s coal ash cleanup, which is projected to cost nearly $9 billion for closure and monitoring and will bring in profit for the utility. (Energy News Network/​Chicago Investigative Project)

ALSO:
• Environmental groups sue the U.S. EPA for allowing hundreds of unregulated coal ash dumps, a third of which are in the Southeast. (Facing South)
• A North Carolina college town struggles with how to deal with hundreds of thousands of tons of coal ash buried beneath the police department. (NC Policy Watch)
• North Carolina residents continue to fight a Duke Energy-owned coal-fired power plant after winning a lawsuit forcing it to move coal ash to a lined landfill. (WUNC)

SOLAR:
• A nonprofit launches a local solar cooperative in a Florida county. (St. Pete Catalyst)
• An Arkansas resident complains his electric cooperative threatened to charge him application fees and require a $1 million insurance policy when he asked about installing solar panels. (KARK)
• Duke Energy installs 250 kW of solar arrays atop a Florida aquarium. (Solar Power World)
• The Federal Aviation Administration announces it will install a solar generation project at an Oklahoma facility. (news release)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Tesla considers building a lithium refinery along the Gulf Coast at potential sites in Texas and Louisiana. (NOLA.com)
• The recently passed federal climate spending package spurs a series of clean energy business investments, with Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and perhaps Oklahoma all seeing electric vehicle announcements. (Reuters)
• A lithium company announces it will build a Tennessee plant to produce lithium hydroxide for use in electric vehicle batteries. (news release)

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Environmentalists appreciate the congressional climate package’s emissions-cutting potential, but worry some provisions will enable more fossil fuel development in Texas. (Texas Observer)

OIL & GAS: Louisiana oil and gas officials hail a court ruling that reverses President Biden’s ban on lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico. (Greater Baton Rouge Business Report)

UTILITIES: North Carolina begins hearings on Duke Energy’s proposed carbon reduction plan. (WUNC)

GEOTHERMAL: An expert says Texas has ​“the largest undeveloped geothermal potential of any state,” but hasn’t yet capitalized on it because of the state’s historic emphasis on oil and gas. (Texas Standard)

POLITICS:
• Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin asserts that he has the power to withdraw the state from a regional carbon market despite Democrats’ claims that only the legislature can do so. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
• As Democrats argue over a measure backed by U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin to streamline pipeline permitting, West Virginia’s Republican U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito sponsors similar legislation. (WV Metro News)
• West Virginia lawmakers approve a bill creating two industrial areas set aside for businesses that want to run on 100% renewable power. (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
• Southwest Virginia’s congressional delegation asks President Biden for a major disaster declaration to unlock federal aid after July flooding. (Cardinal News)