Louisiana’s wind industry takes shape

This roundup of energy news headlines comes from our Southeast Energy News newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox each morning.

WIND

• Records show at least five land-based utility-scale wind projects under development in Louisiana, signaling the wind industry is moving forward despite Trump’s opposition. (Times-Picayune)

GRID

• Texas regulators consider whether to approve the use of larger, 765-kilovolt transmission lines that advocates say are needed to accommodate power needed for higher demand from data centers and other users. (San Antonio Express-News)

• West Virginia county leaders express concern about recently passed legislation intended to attract data centers that limits the amount of tax revenue that goes to the localities that host them. (WV Metro News)

CARBON CAPTURE

• Republican Louisiana lawmakers consider legislation to limit or outright block the development of roughly 30 carbon capture projects backed by the state’s oil and gas industry, but opposed by many residents. (Floodlight)

PIPELINES

• The Mountain Valley Pipeline’s developers submit a new application for the proposed Southgate extension from Virginia into North Carolina. (WVTF)

• A retired couple who previously lived near an Enbridge-operated gas pipeline that ruptured in 2010 now live in Tennessee, where they’re fighting the company’s plans to build another pipeline to a Tennessee Valley Authority plant. (Knoxville News Sentinel)

• Even with the addition of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, Appalachian gas production rose only a tenth of a percent in 2024. (West Virginia Public Broadcasting)

FOSSIL FUELS

• Researchers are still studying the lingering effects of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, while lawsuits from cleanup workers and residents over its health effects remain stalled. (Times-Picayune, NBC News)

• Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers hails Trump’s order to prop up the coal industry as a pivotal move to turn the state into a coal-powered ​“energy hub,” but experts warn the orders won’t reverse the market’s shift toward cleaner energy. (Lexington Herald-Leader)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES

• Workers at a Tennessee Volkswagen plant continue to negotiate with the company over pay and benefits one year after they voted to unionize. (Chattanooga Times Free Press)

• Tesla argues it’s continuing to make progress on its Gigafactory Texas despite laying off 7% of its workforce last year. (Houston Chronicle)

SOLAR

• A West Virginia school system moves to install solar panels to save $6.5 million over 25 years, but area lawmakers carried legislation to block such moves because they don’t support the coal and natural gas industries. (Mountain State Spotlight)

EMISSIONS

• A new study reveals that people of color are underrepresented in jobs at Louisiana’s chemical plants and refineries, even though their communities bear much of the brunt of the pollution. (Verite News)

COMMENTARY

• Virginia should support Dominion Energy’s offshore wind farm because it strengthens America’s energy independence, enhances the grid, and creates economic prosperity, writes the state director of Conservatives for Clean Energy. (Virginian-Pilot)