SOLAR: North Carolina regulators approve a controversial green tariff for Duke Energy after the utility revises its proposal to allow large customers to pay extra to accelerate solar projects that were already mandated by state law. (Energy News Network)

ALSO: 

OIL & GAS: 

  • Foul water erupts from another orphan oil well in Texas as part of a series of recent blowouts that researchers have linked to the injection of wastewater as part of the fracking process. (Houston Chronicle)
  • Ohio officials select a Texas energy company to lease a wildlife area for fracking. (Ohio Capital Journal)
  • An Oklahoma-based oil billionaire played a key role in mobilizing other oil executives to back Donald Trump, opening the door for a flood of campaign donations and possibly influencing the Republican’s presidential agenda if elected. (Washington Post)

CLEAN ENERGY: A Georgia official credits the state’s ascendance as the nation’s leader in clean energy technology manufacturing not just to federal climate funding but to forward thinking from state officials and needs of companies already operating there. (Atlanta Business Chronicle)

GRID: Some energy experts question the Texas’ state grid operator’s projection of a 75% increase in power demand by 2030, suggesting the figure is a ploy to attract more funding. (Houston Chronicle)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Eight Tennessee counties will receive a collective $12 million to purchase electric school buses. (WKRN)

WIND: Dominion Energy says it’s still on schedule building its offshore wind farm near Virginia as crews install its 50th monopile foundation. (WVEC)

COAL: 

FUELS: An Australian company purchases a clean ammonia project in Texas for $2.35 billion as it aims to export to markets in Asia and Europe. (Houston Chronicle)

CLIMATE: Conservationists try to protect an ecologically rich Alabama delta that drains into the Gulf of Mexico from development, pollution and the effects of climate change. (Associated Press)

UTILITIES: 

COMMENTARY: The widespread outages caused by Hurricane Beryl stemmed largely from an inadequate state grid that badly needs transmission and distribution line upgrades, writes an economics professor. (Austin American-Statesman)

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Mason has worked as a journalist since 2001, covering Appalachian communities and the issues that affect them. He compiles the Southeast Energy News digest. Mason previously worked as a wildlife biologist before moving into journalism by freelancing at Coast Weekly in Monterey, California, before taking an internship in 2001 at High Country News. He wrote for the Enterprise Mountaineer in western North Carolina and the Roanoke Times in western Virginia before going freelance in 2012. His work has appeared in Southerly, Daily Yonder, Mother Jones, Huffington Post, WVPB’s Inside Appalachia and elsewhere. Mason was born and raised in Clifton Forge, Virginia, and now lives with his family and a small herd of goats in Floyd County, Virginia.