CLEAN ENERGY: A survey of non-union construction and maintenance workers in Texas’ solar and wind industries finds many have been injured, nearly half of construction workers have gotten sick from working in the heat, and broad racial pay and benefit disparities. (Houston Chronicle)

GRID: 

WIND: Texas propels the wind industry to surpass coal-fired power generation in the U.S. for two months straight for the first time ever, even as wind has outproduced coal in Texas for four years running. (San Antonio Express-News)

SOLAR: 

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Georgia voters love the thousands of jobs accompanying a wave of electric vehicle and battery plants but still have big doubts about electric vehicles themselves, with some suggesting the new plants could be converted to making gas-powered automobiles. (Politico)

PIPELINES: 

OIL & GAS: 

BIOMASS: A company builds a Louisiana plant to convert a sugar cane byproduct called bagasse into fuel pellets that can be burned at biomass plants. (The Advocate)

HYDROGEN: Officials with an Appalachia hydrogen hub planned for Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania say they’ll be more transparent about their plans now that federal funding has been awarded. (Allegheny Front)

CLIMATE: 

  • Ernesto arrives way, way early as the season’s third hurricane, which experts say is an ominous sign of what’s to come as the climate continues to warm. (Grist)
  • Texas lawmakers consider legislation to reform the insurance market after the state’s insurer-of-last-resort elects to raise rates for homeowners along the Gulf Coast. (Houston Chronicle)
  • West Virginia residents still trying to recover from 2022 floods hope a $50,000 mitigation grant from the U.S. EPA will build resilience and reduce the intensity of flooding in the area. (Charleston Gazette-Mail)

UTILITIES: A Tennessee municipal utility buys power from the Tennessee Valley Authority and adds a premium to fund its operations, and while its rates rank just above the state average, they’re still well below the national average. (Knoxville News Sentinel)

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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.