West Virginia’s coal mine cleanup fund at risk of collapse

COAL: West Virginia’s fund to clean up abandoned coal mines is sagging so badly that even one bankruptcy by a significant mining company could wipe it out and leave state taxpayers stuck paying for cleanup costs. (Mountain State Spotlight/​ProPublica)

ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM: Claiming it was filed years too late, a federal judge throws out a lawsuit by Louisiana groups alleging that a parish government used discriminatory land-use policies to concentrate petrochemical plants in majority-Black communities. (NOLA.com)

STORAGE:

• Georgia leans into battery storage to leverage around-the-clock power from its rapidly growing solar energy sector, highlighted by Georgia Power’s impending completion of a 65 MW battery facility. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
• Texas regulators call on the state’s grid operator to update its rules to accommodate more battery storage facilities instead of continuing to rely on traditional power plants. (KEYE)

GRID:

• Experts argue over whether Texas’ deregulated power market needs to change as the state grid enters the winter season without having added significantly more capacity. (Texas Tribune)
• Texas’ grid manager blames a dip in solar and wind power, plus a bottleneck in transmission lines moving wind power north from Corpus Christi, for a September emergency when reserves dropped to a dangerously low level. (Dallas Morning News)
• The Texas grid manager’s simulations show that despite reforms to boost grid reliability, the system still is at risk of blackouts every few years should there be a major winter storm. (KVUE)

BIOMASS: Environmentalists say state documents show an Enviva wood pellet plant in Georgia is releasing up to three times the allowable amount of hazardous pollution. (Savannah Morning News)

SOLAR: Tampa General Hospital is building an urgent care facility to serve a Babcock Ranch, Florida — the first town in the U.S. to be powered entirely by solar energy. (Becker’s Hospital Review)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES:

• The United Auto Workers’ newly announced push to organize non-union factories is focused largely on factories in the Southeast, including planned Hyundai and Rivian electric vehicle plants in Georgia. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, subscription)
• An Alabama company is awarded grants to build electric vehicle chargers next to a cultural center. (Gadsden Times)

UTILITIES: Arkansas regulators approve a settlement that would result in Entergy sending customers billing rebates related to overcharges around its nuclear plant in southern Mississippi. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

CLIMATE:

• Mississippi has adjusted building efficiency standards, electric vehicle manufacturing and tax exemptions for renewable energy companies, but otherwise has not addressed climate change because experts say the issue has become politicized. (Daily Mississippian)
• Most of North Carolina heads into its third straight winter while mired in drought, and experts say rain may not arrive in significant, El Niño-driven amounts until January. (Wilmington StarNews)

COMMENTARY: An editorial board hopes a project to solarize an entire West Virginia school district will change the political conversation about renewable energy and economic diversification in the state. (Weirton Daily Times)