July 13, 2010

Solar energy system roofing projects across the Southeast are helping the Navy drive down energy costs while creating jobs

The U.S. Navy's Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Southeast — based in Jacksonville, Fla. — is using $69.3 million in funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to install solar energy systems and upgrade a total of 32 buildings at 11 naval installations across Florida, Mississippi and Texas. [More]

July 13, 2010

Building 3156 stands on the campus of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn. It's just one of many buildings at the various U.S. Department of Energy national labs scattered across the country — or so it seems.

But in reality, the building is unique because it is the first DOE retrofit office building that has been given the designation of being a net-zero-energy building. This means it uses equal to or even less than the amount of energy it produces annually. [More]

June 21, 2010

A project started last year at a U.S. Navy base in Meridian, Miss., that will save thousands in taxpayer dollars has been successfully completed.

The $3.2 million Energy Conservation Project contract was awarded last year by Naval Facilities Engineering Command to reduce energy consumption at Naval Air Station Meridian. The project, awarded to Atmos Energy Corp., a Dallas-based utility company, wrapped up in April 2010. [More]

June 2, 2010

To a casual observer, the buoy off the shore of Marine Corps Base Hawaii (MCBH) might look like nothing more than a bright yellow spot in a blue ocean. But this isn’t an ordinary buoy — it’s a small electrical generator, creating renewable electricity as it bobs up and down on the waves. It’s also a test project by the U.S. Navy to see whether a wider use of wave energy technology is a practical way to power Navy and Marine Corps installations. [More]

May 27, 2010

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) will be saving nearly $4 million a year by switching a portion of their current natural gas-fueled steam plant for one powered by biofuel. The move is part of an Energy Savings Performance Contract that will ultimately cut the Lab’s fossil fuel consumption by 70 percent per year---saving 120,000 barrels of oil, the same amount used to power 4,500 homes in one year. [More]

May 14, 2010

Some 3,500 supporters of a clean-energy economy gathered in Washington, D.C., for the annual Good Jobs, Green Jobs national conference, with several prominent speakers, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator John Kerry and Energy Secretary Steven Chu, taking the podium over the three-day event. [More]

May 14, 2010

At Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, heat is a fact of life. The base is located on the edge of the Mojave Desert near Ridgecrest, Calif., where the blistering summer heat can actually peel the paint off cars. Longtime desert residents know how to deal with it, but thanks to an ongoing environmental program, many base employees no longer have to do so. Since 2007, China Lake has been building carports that don’t just deflect heat — they also absorb it and turn it into electricity using a series of photovoltaic solar panels lining the tops of the carports.

“They are very, very appreciated, because if you park in the sun, you have peeling paint and leather, and the seats can be very, very hot,” says Peggy Shoaf, public affairs program manager for the base. “The carports really do provide quite a bit of shade and lower the temperature in the vehicle by at least 20 degrees.” [More]

May 10, 2010

In parts of this country, wood seems like the outsider in the biomass family. New ethanol plants that grind down millions of bushels of corn in the Midwest and breakthroughs in algae along the coasts always garner the most attention. But in states like Montana, a place with over 70 million acres of forest, wood is the biofuel of choice. [More]

April 23, 2010

With help from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and its subcontractor, Redhorse Corporation, the agency that keeps our country’s airports running is bolstering its energy efficiency. [More]

April 22, 2010

Federal government officials were scattered across the country speaking at events to commemorate Earth Day’s 40th anniversary, stressing the importance of protecting the environment and building a clean energy economy. [More]

April 22, 2010

Hundreds of people visited the National Mall on the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. [More]

April 2, 2010

Built on the end of the Mokapu Peninsula on Oahu’s northeast coast, the Marine Corps Base Hawaii at Kaneohe Bay gets plenty of sunlight. But harnessing that sunlight to create renewable electricity was considered too expensive to be practical — until 2008. [More]

March 24, 2010

A public-private partnership has helped one Air Force base reduce its energy costs and convert to 25 percent renewable energy. Nellis Air Force Base, just north of Las Vegas, took a big step in 2007 when it installed a 14.2-megawatt, 70,000-panel photovoltaic solar array that reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 24,000 tons a year. Built partly on a landfill, the field of solar panels takes advantage of two resources plentiful in Nevada: sunshine and empty land.

At its unveiling in December of 2007, the Nellis array was the largest solar panel installation in North America. (It has since been eclipsed by a Florida Power & Light plant.) The project was originally expected to produce about 30,000 megawatt-hours of electricity per year, but Steven Dumont, Air Combat Command Energy Manager, says it’s actually producing closer to 32,000 megawatt-hours, which is about 8 percent above expectations.

“It all started with a developer who called the base and subsequently called us at Air Combat Command,” he said. “[They] said, ‘We have an idea if you’re willing to give us the land. We can make it cost-effective.’” [More]

March 19, 2010

Energy SmartPARKS is a program formed through collaboration between the U.S. Departments of Energy and the Interior to help the National Park Service make America’s parks and landmarks more energy-efficient. [More]

March 15, 2010

The 10 federal land organizations — including two national parks, six national forests and two national wildlife refuges — in the Greater Yellowstone Area comprise an entire ecosystem of their own. [More]

February 22, 2010

Reducing our dependency on foreign oil means finding ways to harness the power of renewable energy sources, but it also means saving energy whenever and wherever possible. [More]

December 11, 2009

As an early adopter of cutting-edge technologies, the United States military is pioneering energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in the field. [More]