Southeast leads the U.S. in climate displacements

CLIMATE: In a record year for displacements, climate-related disasters in 2022 forced more people in the Southeast to evacuate than anywhere in the U.S., with Louisiana and Florida seeing the most relocations. (E&E News)

ALSO: American climate migrants flee Florida, North Carolina and other disaster-prone areas even while more prosperous White residents receive the benefit of climate resilience projects. (American Prospect)

GRID:
• Nearly 20,000 customers in Austin, Texas, still have no electricity nearly a week after a deadly ice storm brought down power lines across the city. (Associated Press)
• An expert says outages in Texas caused by last week’s winter storm point to the need for more intensive tree-trimming by utilities as well as additional reforms to the state power grid. (Houston Public Media)
• Federal officials arrest an Orlando, Florida, man who founded a neo-Nazi group and a Maryland woman for planning to attack electrical substations in Baltimore. (Orlando Sentinel)

SOLAR:
• A solar developer seeks a Virginia county’s approval to build a 50 MW solar farm on a former titanium mine with a history of heavy industrial pollution. (Lynchburg News & Advance)
• The Tennessee head of a regional clean energy group touts his energy savings by using solar panels and taking his house off the grid during peak demand to receive a local utility’s time-of-use incentives. (WBIR)
• A Texas solar installer hails tax credits passed by Congress last year that can trim the final cost of solar panel installation by thousands. (Victoria Advocate)

OIL & GAS:
• Student activists push the University of Texas to cut its ties to oil and gas, which have swelled a $42 billion endowment that’s second only to Harvard’s. (Daily Texan)
• A Louisiana professor floats a plan to convert orphan oil and gas wells to carbon-neutral production wells through a process that sequesters the flue gas. (news release)

STORAGE: A coalition of western Kentucky economic development groups pitches the region as a prime location for industrial prospects who want to be near electric vehicle battery production centers in Kentucky and Tennessee. (Murray Ledger & Times)

EMISSIONS: North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper releases an analysis outlining the state’s possible pathways to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, but elected officials, environments and industry still debate the question. (Spectrum News)

UTILITIES: A federal judge dismisses a lawsuit by environmental groups challenging the Tennessee Valley Authority’s use of 20-year contracts to lock in local power distributors. (Associated Press)

POLITICS:
• Virginia lawmakers continue to adjust a utility reform bill in conjunction with the date Dominion Energy expects to complete its offshore wind farm. (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
• A Virginia lawmaker wants to break a deadlock over appointing officials to the state’s utility regulatory board with a bill to temporarily create a fourth seat on the commission. (Virginia Mercury)
• Dueling Virginia budget proposals include provisions for transforming former coal mines into solar farms and building out offshore wind infrastructure. (Cardinal News)

COMMENTARY: Virginia’s divided government, room for gas industry growth and local carbon-neutrality pledges make the state an attractive target for conservatives pushing gas stoves as a wedge issue, writes an energy columnist. (Virginia Mercury)