Success At Kentucky Liquid Coal Conference

Recently the Midwest New Energy Future Committee of the Sierra Club organized a Coal to Liquids conference in Kentucky. Becki Clayborn, a Sierra Club Coal Campaign regional representative from Illinois said the conference was a great success, bringing together more than 50 volunteers around a major issue.

"The committee is volunteer-driven," said Clayborn. "They network with coal activists throughout the Midwest in order to increase effectiveness in challenging new coal-fired power plants in that region."

Clayborn said this was the conference's third year, with this one focusing specifically on liquid coal.

"They wanted volunteers to learn more details on liquid coal plants in order to determine the best way to challenge the proposed liquid coal plants in the Ohio River Valley," explained Clayborn.

The conference was a big success, she added, with volunteers leaving energized to fight liquid coal plants together.

"Folks learned a lot at this conference and were very excited to collaborate for future actions to stop liquid coal plants from being built. The biggest challenge is determining the best target for challenging such plants. Financing seems to be the key point of leverage for stopping liquid coal - specifically we need to prevent the federal government from putting money into liquid coal, whether through subsidies or long term contracts."

Photos courtesy of John Blair and Rick Clewett.