Fletcher has already committed $2.4 million to coal-to-liquid projects

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports that Fletcher has already committed $2.4 million dollars of state money to two coal-to-liquid projects.

Without a public announcement, the state awarded a $400,000 grant in May to Peabody Energy to conduct a feasibility study on a $3 billion coal-to-liquid fuel plant near Sturgis, in Union County, according to records.

And it committed $2 million in February to help a company called EnviRes LLC develop technology in the Ashland area to gasify coal, biomass and other carbon-bearing materials.

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And, in fact, the Peabody feasibility study isn't even expected to be completed until April 2008, when next year's session would be ending.

House Speaker Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, said yesterday that the contracts are further evidence that a special session to pass tax incentives for such companies is not needed.

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Also in the papers today, the Lexington Herald-Leader has a scathing editorial  against coal-to-liquid fuel and the need to have a special session to subsidize it.

You almost felt sorry for Bill Caylor of the Kentucky Coal Association and Jim Mayer of the Southern States Energy Board as they tried to convince viewers of KET's Kentucky Tonight that global warming is a hoax and that, even if it's real, there's no proof that fossil fuels are to blame.

The coal clique is paddling against a powerful tide of science, industry leaders and public opinion on this one.

That's why it would be economic suicide for Kentucky to hitch its future to an energy technology that offers no reductions in carbon emissions.

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