Every one of those power plants is unimaginably complicated - think about what you would do if you were handed a lump of coal and were told to make it run your refrigerator. Paul Wesslund writes on consumer and cooperative affairs for the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the national trade association representing more than 900 local electric cooperatives. From growing suburbs to remote farming communities, electric co-ops serve as engines of economic development for 42 million Americans across 56 percent of the nation's landscape. Clover Power Station in Halifax County; a coal-fired power plant. co-opliving.com February 2019 | Cooperative Living | 25http://www.co-opliving.com