"The coal-rich state wants to land the first new U.S. smelter in 45 years. But the deal won’t happen unless Kentucky can furnish lots of clean energy. "

"ASHLAND, Kentucky — When John Holbrook first started working as a pipefitter in the early 1990s, jobs were easy to come by in his corner of northeastern Kentucky.

A giant iron and steel mill routinely needed maintenance and repair work, as did the coal ​“coking” ovens next to it. There was also a hulking coal-fired power plant and a bustling petroleum refinery nearby. Fossil fuels extracted from beneath the region’s rugged Appalachian terrain supplied these industrial sites, which sprung up during the 19th and 20th centuries along the yawning Ohio River and its tributary, Big Sandy.

“Work was so plentiful,” Holbrook recalled on a scorching August morning in Ashland, a quiet riverfront city of some 21,000 people."

Maria Gallucci reports for Canary Media September 10 2024. [2]