OIL & GAS: As the industry publicly claims it supports the clean energy transition, a House committee investigation finds oil and gas leaders are privately skeptical of renewables’ potential and seek carbon capture funding to avoid changing their business models. (Washington Post)
SOLAR:
• Labor advocates see success in their efforts to organize unions in the growing solar industry, even in right-to-work states like Texas. (American Prospect)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers develop a technique to produce thin, lightweight solar cells that can be applied to fixed surfaces. (news release)
• A 100 MW solar project being built in Texas will be the first large solar farm with panels installed directly on the ground. (Canary Media)
• Washington, D.C.’s city council advances a bill to expand solar energy despite a racial equity impact assessment that found it would benefit wealthy residents at the expense of low-income people of color. (DCist)
POLITICS:
• Conservative clean energy groups look to gain influence next year in the Republican-held House. (E&E News)
• Two congress members introduce a bill to boost research and development of clean hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. (Utility Dive)
• A Democratic senator introduces a bill that would allocate federal funding for abandoned oil and gas well identification, monitoring and research. (Carlsbad Current-Argus)
CLEAN ENERGY: The Inflation Reduction Act, state climate and clean energy laws, and an increasing focus on an equitable transition are among big wins for clean energy in the past year. (Inside Climate News)
PIPELINES: This week’s 14,000-barrel oil spill from the Keystone pipeline in Kansas is one of the largest U.S. crude spills in nearly a decade. (Reuters)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
• Workers at an Ohio battery manufacturing plant vote to become the first unionized factory built for electric vehicles and components, giving the UAW a foothold in the emerging auto sector. (Washington Post)
• After relaunching in early 2022, a pioneering electric vehicle car-sharing service in Minneapolis-St. Paul is experiencing steady growth, logging nearly 25,000 trips in six months. (Energy News Network)
COAL: DTE Energy officially retires two southeastern Michigan coal plants as it transitions to more clean energy. (CBS Detroit)
GRID:
• Investigators search for motives in the North Carolina substation attack, scouring online conspiracy theories and flagging a suspected white supremacist who posted the locations of power stations across North America. (CNBC, NewsNation)
• The U.S. Energy Department awards an Idaho researcher $700,000 to improve grid reliability by allowing it to think like a human. (Idaho Statesman)
CARBON CAPTURE: A former U.S. energy secretary’s think tank proposes creating a federal carbon removal authority that would use public money to remove carbon from the air. (Bloomberg, subscription)
AVIATION: JetBlue Airways will largely stop buying carbon offsets for its domestic flights next year, instead boosting its investment in sustainable aviation fuels. (Bloomberg, subscription)
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