Good morning. This week, Hyundai officially opened its Georgia factory and announced a $21 billion investment into its U.S. manufacturing facilities. As Alexander C. Kaufman reports in today’s top story, that includes a $6 billion Louisiana steel plant, where it will use an electric arc furnace instead of traditional blast furnaces. It’s an incremental step away from fossil fuels, although likely still entails the use of fracked gas.
Read on for more.
TODAY'S TOP NEWS
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Hyundai announces a $6 billion steel plant in Louisiana that aims to use an electric arc furnace — a step away from coal-fired blast furnaces, but one that will still likely require gas use, an advocate says. (Canary Media)
Tennessee residents push Ford for a “community benefits agreement” to hire local workers and lessen environmental impacts around its EV and battery manufacturing complex, even as state lawmakers move to block such contracts. (WPLN)
Florida hosts the nation’s largest electric vehicle festival as President Trump slashes tax credits and emission regulations, and as Tesla sales suffer amid Elon Musk’s government role. (Tampa Bay Times)
A Virginia public transportation authority receives its first electric buses. (WVTF)
FOSSIL FUELS
Two Texas lawmakers introduce legislation to redirect 10% of the roughly $8 billion oil and gas companies pay in severance taxes back to oil-producing counties to pay for infrastructure, emergency services and other expenses. (Texas Tribune)
An economist who worked with President Reagan to promote supply-side economics in the ‘80s warns Texas lawmakers against using subsidies to promote gas-fired power plants, saying the market should decide how best to boost the grid. (Houston Chronicle)
EFFICIENCY
A federal court restores Georgia’s $220 million share of $8.8 billion in federal energy and electrification rebate programs, which Trump previously tried to freeze and claw back. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)
WIND
Georgia Tech engineers install a pedestrian “BladeBridge” built from previously used wind turbine blades. (WSB)
STORAGE
A Texas county announces plans to form a joint planning board with a city due to concerns about a battery storage facility that a Houston-based energy company is building. (KTEN)
UTILITIES
Georgia Power officials testify to state regulators about the utility’s long-term plan to handle 8 GW of growth forecast through early 2030s, largely due to the booming data center sector. (Georgia Recorder)
POLITICS
West Virginia U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito is among the Republicans who have successfully lobbied the Trump administration to unfreeze clean energy funding, in her case to benefit an electric bus manufacturer in the state. (E&E News)
North Carolina’s Senate majority leader, a former Duke Energy executive who was leading a bill to relieve the utility from a goal to reduce carbon emissions, announces he’s resigning from the state legislature, effective today. (NC Newsline)
COMMENTARY
Texas’ use of battery storage to bolster its grid against power demand and rolling blackouts illustrates how the market has gotten behind clean energy, writes a renewable energy advocate. (Utility Dive)
Virginia lawmakers should ease their clean energy goals to allow development of more nuclear and natural gas to ensure companies continue to locate in the state, writes an economic development official. (Cardinal News)
NEW FROM CANARY MEDIA
Alison Takemura dives into a new report detailing buildings’ many climate dilemmas, and the levers that developers and owners will need to pull to slash their carbon emissions.
Canary Media is an independent, nonprofit newsroom covering the transition to clean energy and solutions to the climate crisis. Donate to support us.
