STEVENSON, Alabama, January 9, 2009 (ENS) – The Tennessee Valley Authority has had a second waste spill in three weeks at one of its coal-fired power plants.

A 10,000 gallon leak of process water from the gypsum pond at the Widows Creek Fossil Plant in Stevenson, Alabama was discovered just before dawn this morning. TVA officials say the leak has stopped.

“The leak from the gypsum pond flowed into an adjacent settling pond,” the federal electric utility said in a statement this morning. “Some material overflowed into Widows Creek, although most of the leakage remained in the settling pond.”

Gypsum ponds hold limestone spray from TVA’s scrubbers that clean sulfur dioxide from coal-plant emissions. Gypsum contains calcium sulfate, which is used in drywall, a commercially sold construction material.

Widows Creek Fossil Plant, named for the creek that flows through the plant site, is located on Guntersville Reservoir on the Tennessee River in northeast Alabama.

TVA notified federal and state authorities and has deployed containment booms on Widows Creek to trap the contaminated water. The utility says it will perform temporary repairs to the pond.

TVA’s Widows Creek Fossil Plant in northeastern Alabama (Photo courtesy TVA)

Alabama Department of Environmental Management spokesman Scott Hughes told ENS that the agency has a crew on the scene monitoring Widows Creek for effects of the spill on aquatic organisms in the creek.

“At noon there was no sign of impact to aquatic organisms,” he said.

The city of Scottsboro about 15 miles downstream from the Widows Creek Fossil Plant uses the Tennessee River as drinking water. Hughes explained that any contamination from the spill has not had time to reach this community.

ADEM personnel will provide oversight to ensure cleanup is done in a timely manner, said Hughes.

The eight coal-fired units at Widows Creek generate about 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to supply 650,000 homes. The plant consumes some 10,000 tons of coal a day.

This leak is the second at a TVA coal-fired power plant in the past three weeks. On December 22, a retaining wall broke at the TVA’s Kingston Fossil power plant in eastern Tennessee’s Roane County, about 100 miles to the northeast of Widows Creek. A billion gallons of coal ash sludge spilled into the Emory River and across 400 acres of the surrounding farm and residential neighborhood.

“Even as residents in Roane County Tennessee are still trying to grasp the full impact of the Kingston disaster, communities in northeastern Alabama are now threatened with a new toxic coal waste spill,” said Bruce Nilles, director of the Sierra Club’s National Coal Campaign.

“While initial accounts indicate that this latest spill is smaller than the Tennessee disaster, we hope that TVA and EPA have learned from the Tennessee disaster and move quickly to protect residents,” said Nilles.

John Wathen, an Alabama resident with Hurricane Creekkeeper, was in Tennessee taking stock of the Kingston disaster when he heard about today’s spill.

“If this don’t stick a finger in the whole clean coal myth, then I don’t know what will,” said Wathen.

Coal waste can contain harmful substances including lead, mercury and arsenic.

Once spilled, the toxins from the waste can leak into soil and water, putting people who come in contact with the contamination at risk for health problems.

“Shockingly, coal waste is largely unregulated in Alabama,” said Gil Rogers, staff attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

“Alabamans deserve straight answers from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management about how it’s handling this waste stream at TVA’s Widow Creek plant and if any corrective action procedures are in place to deal with it.

ADEM’s Hughes told ENS, “We inspect all these facilities on an annual basis. Our focus is to ensure the water discharged from these impoundments comply with their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits. The lastest inspection at Widows Creek took place on May 21, 2008, and Hughes says inspectors found no violations.

“Clearly current regulations are not adequate,” said Nilles. “We need the Environmental Protection Agency to start regulating coal ash before more communities are put at risk.” Senator Boxer said, “The Tennessee Valley Authority has a lot to answer for – the first step is to prevent further spills and damage to communities around its plants. I have asked the TVA for a complete assessment of the safety of its waste disposal sites and their plans for upgrading those sites. This second pollution spill must be a wakeup message to the TVA and to the U.S. EPA that the current situation is unacceptable.” TVA has determined that a cap dislodged from an unused 30-inch standpipe in the gypsum pond which allowed water and gypsum to bypass the existing system and drain into the adjacent settling pond, filling it to capacity and causing it to overflow. TVA will fill the unused pipe with concrete. As part of the recovery, Widows Creek is performing maintenance activities to slope the internal wall of the gypsum pond by bringing in about 3,500 cubic yards of sand.

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WASHINGTON, DC, October 30, 2008 (ENS) – Televisions meeting the federal government’s new, more comprehensive energy efficiency specification will be available in stores nationwide, starting on Saturday. TVs that meet the new Energy Star specification will be up to 30 percent more energy efficient than conventional models.

“EPA encourages consumers to look for the Energy Star label when buying new televisions,” said U.S. EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. “Energy Star’s new specifications for televisions are turning the channel on energy guzzling sets.”

There are about 275 million TVs currently in use in the United States, consuming over 50 billion kilowatt hours of energy each year – about four percent of all households’ electricity use. This is enough electricity to power all the homes in the state of New York for an entire year, according to federal government calculations.
All brands of new TVs must be more energy-efficient if they want to carry the Energy Star label. (Photo credit unknown)

If all televisions sold in the United States met the new Energy Star requirements, the savings in energy costs would be about $1 billion annually and greenhouse gas emissions would be reduced by the equivalent of about one million cars, Johnson said.

The Version 3.0 Energy Star TV products specification was finalized on February 4, 2008. It requires energy efficiency when televisions are on, as well as off or in standby mode.

It also requires the use of external power supplies that have earned the Energy Star label, where applicable. This new specification is important since televisions being sold now are larger, in use more hours a day, and offer more vibrant pictures, which can increase the amount of electricity they use.

In fact, some of the largest, high resolution televisions can use as much as 500 kilowatt hours per year.

The new specification applies to all brands of television sets. Manufacturers have qualified their models ahead of the November 1, 2008 effective date. Energy Star qualified televisions can be found at most stores where electronics are sold.

Consumers who want to buy new TVs are encouraged to ask their sales associates for newly qualified Energy Star sets to ensure they are getting a television that qualifies under this enhanced specification.

Even more energy efficient televisions are on the way. Energy Star has just added energy-efficiency guidelines for digital cable ready televisions with a point of deployment, POD, slot.

These TVs add the functions of a cable box to the television set by using a card that users can get from their local cable operators. Energy Star qualified versions of these TVs are not yet available, but look for them in the future.

The Energy Star program was introduced by the U.S. EPA and the U.S. Energy Department in 1992 as a voluntary, market-based partnership to reduce energy use through efficiency standards.

Today, the Energy Star label can be found on more than 50 different kinds of products as well as buildings and new homes. Products that have earned the Energy Star label prevent greenhouse gas emissions by meeting strict energy-efficiency specifications set by the government.

Federal government data show that in 2007, Americans using Energy Star products saved $16 billion on their energy bills while reducing greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those from 27 million vehicles.

To see ENS previous coverage of the new Energy Star TV specification, click here [www.ens-newswire.com].

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CEDAR FALLS, Iowa, August 6, 2008 (ENS) – The past week has ushered in the summer’s most sultry weather to date, but in our household, we like basic fresh air, unconditioned. So we use windows and fans when necessary.

In 2007, our heat pump ran a total of 10 days the entire summer. Our total cooling cost for 2007: $20. Cool.

Our primary strategy is windows management. When we know it is going to be a hot day, we close our windows by 9 am to keep in the cool air from the night before and use fans if we need to. When outside goes from 65 to 87, the inside of our house goes from 67 to 78. Very pleasant.

Kamyar Enshayan (Photo
courtesy Cedar Falls
City Council)

A residential central-air system uses roughly 3,560 kilowatt hours per season.

Assuming seven cents per kwh and 13,000 households in Cedar Falls, if everyone used their central air, residents of Cedar Falls would spend $3.2 million to keep cool.

In contrast, if everyone cooled with fresh-air technology – in our case, 284 kwh per season for fans – the electric-cooling bill for the whole town would be $258,440. Nearly $3 million per year in savings for Cedar Falls.

And if you extend the same ballpark calculation to Black Hawk County, the savings would be $11.5 million per year; for the Des Moines metro area, $42 million; and for the whole state of Iowa, $267 million.

It takes a ton of coal to produce 2,343 kwh of electricity. An average household burns 1.5 tons of coal per season for cooling. A 3,000-pound air conditioner!

Burning 1.5 tons of coal to cool just one house for one summer emits roughly 12 milligrams of mercury. Assuming 12 weeks of cooling, that amounts to one milligram of mercury per week, either here or near whichever power plant that produced our electricity. And that is just for one household.

The Food and Drug Administration’s limit on mercury ingestion for a 45 pound child is 0.056 milligrams per week.

A residential street in Cedar
Falls, Iowa (Photo courtesy
Cedar Falls Real Estate Co.)

Our household also uses another well-proven cutting-edge technology – the linear evaporative solar-drying system – as environmental activist and author Bill McKibben calls it – otherwise known as the clothesline.

Do we really need clothes dryers? They consume 1,440 kwh per year.

Cedar Falls spends $1.3 million on clothes drying every year; Black Hawk County, $5 million; Des Moines metro area, $19 million; and the whole state of Iowa, $117 million, to dry our clothes while warming the planet.

We have a set of clotheslines outside for fresh air to do the work. In winter, we use clotheslines set up in the basement, plus clothes racks.

Adding things up, Cedar Falls residents spend $4.5 million on cooling and clothes drying every year. What would be the community economic impact of retaining a significant portion of that $4.5 million locally?

After looking at actual electricity and natural gas use of numerous homes in my community, I discovered that some homes use eight times more electricity than my household and four times more natural gas. The potential to trim energy waste is tremendous. Acting on that potential will add self-reliance and resilience to our economic vitality.

This is not a technological issue; it is a cultural one. It is a matter of commitment and public policies that encourage massive reduction in energy use.

And that – aggressive energy conservation in homes, businesses, schools, churches, government buildings and transportation – should be the highest priority for local and state government policies. We already know everything we need to know to cut our energy consumption by half, if not more.

By Kamyar Enshayan

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SAN DIEGO, California, July 16, 2008 (ENS) – The University of California-San Diego calls itself “one of the nation’s greenest college campuses,” and to enhance that status, the university has begun to install the components of a multi-faceted sustainable energy program.

The university will soon be generating 7.4 megawatts of green energy, providing 10 to 15 percent of its own annual electrical usage.

The far-reaching program, which includes solar panels, biogas fuel cells and wind energy, began with the first installation of solar photovoltaic panels atop a campus utility plant.

Soon, buildings and parking garages across the 1,200-acre campus next to the Pacific Ocean will feature solar panels.

Workers install solar panels on a roof
at the University of California-San
Diego. (Photo courtesyUC-San Diego)

UC San Diego’s green energy capacity will eventually produce 29 million kilowatt hours a year, which is enough to provide electricity for more than 4,500 homes a year.

The amount of renewable energy is like removing 10,500 tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, or removing 1,500 cars a year from the roads.

“This photovoltaic installation marks an historic event for a campus that has become a living laboratory for climate change solutions,” said Steve Relyea, vice chancellor of business affairs.

“Our sustainable energy program is the result of a campuswide commitment by students, faculty and administration to advance environmental sustainability on a local, national and global level,” he said.

This year the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Keeling Curve, the first measurement of greenhouse gas build-up, which was conducted by Scripps scientist Charles David Keeling.

Researchers and students at UC San Diego are working on a wide range of environmental sustainability projects. They are developing biofuels from algae and wood debris.

Planners design green dorms with automatic sun shading to save energy and drainage systems that stop all storm runoff from flowing into the nearby ocean.

Students and fleet managers have begun a biofuel shuttle bus line, which decreases UC San Diego’s reliance on greenhouse gas-generating fossil fuels.

The world’s top climate change researchers and post-docs are working to discover the impact of Asian brown cloud pollution on global climate and of rising temperatures on the western U.S. water supply.

UC San Diego’s green energy program will continue to unfold over the next year, as the first megawatt of solar photovoltaic panels is constructed and a second megawatt is planned and implemented.

Construction begins this fall on a project that will allow UC San Diego to produce another 2.4 megawatts of energy from fuel cells powered by renewable methane. The methane fuel will be transported to UC San Diego from the Point Loma sewage treatment plant, where it is produced.

Not only does this produce green energy that replaces carbon-based energy, but it also removes pollutants from local air, since the methane is currently flared into the atmosphere at the sewage plant.

UC San Diego also begins a unique program to swap fossil fuel-generated energy for wind power.

The university will throttle back its natural gas-powered cogeneration plant at night and replace the power with electricity purchased from California wind farms.

This project, the first of its kind in California, will generate up to three megawatts of green energy.

The solar photovoltaic and biogas fuel cell construction projects are cost-free for the university.

UC San Diego has negotiated power purchase agreements, in which investors construct, install and maintain the photovoltaic panels and fuel cells on campus property, and the university then buys the power from investors through long-term contracts.

UC San Diego has teamed up with local, national and international companies on its sustainable energy project.

Three partners are working with the university on the solar photovoltaic project. Borrego Solar, Inc., a national solar power contractor based in El Cajon, California, is the installer; Envision Solar, Inc., of San Diego is the designer of the solar “trees” that will be built on top of UC San Diego parking structures. Solar Power Partners Inc., of Mill Valley is the financier and owner of the solar photovoltaic arrays.

The biogas fuel cells are financed, constructed and owned by The Linde Group, an international industrial gases and engineering company.

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PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, May 5, 2008 (ENS) – The Philadelphia Phillies have signed up to buy 20 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy to serve the ball club’s 43,500-seat Citizens Bank Park. With this purchase the team has become the largest green power purchaser in major league baseball.

The Phillies’ purchase of 20 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy certificates will offset the carbon footprint created by the organization’s utility power usage at Citizens Bank Park for one year.

The Phillies’ purchase also is estimated to avoid the equivalent greenhouse gas emissions of nearly 2,800 vehicles each year.

“EPA applauds the Philadelphia Phillies for playing ball and protecting our environment by purchasing green power,” said EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson. “By being the first major league baseball team to join the Green Power Partnership, the Phillies have hit a grand slam for the environment.”

EPA Regional Administrator Donald Welsh joined Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter and representatives from the Phillies, Major League Baseball, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Pennsylvania’s Department of Energy for the announcement last week.

“When Phillies fans think of green and Citizens Bank Park, they’re just not going to be thinking about the grass on the field or the Phanatic,” said Governor Rendell.

Phillies players and fans at Citizens
Bank Park (Photo by Darrins)

“By choosing to meet its energy needs through clean, renewable energy, the Phillies organization is making a commitment to improving the quality of the air we breathe, to protecting our climate, and spurring the development of additional green energy sources,” the governor said.

Other green initiatives are happening throughout the ballpark. Global Spectrum, Aramark and the Phillies have been recycling frying oil to be used as biodiesel fuel. The partners are recycling glass, plastic and cardboard generated from game day operations; and using carry out trays that are 100 percent post consumer fiber. And fans buying food at the ballpark are eating locally grown produce and organic foods.

They are using environmentally friendly cleaning products and a bio-enzyme to remove grease trapped in kitchen drain pipes.

The ballpark is conserving energy with the building management system and light control system. The facility is converting to lighting that uses light emitting diodes, LEDs, which take 80 percent less power and last years longer than traditional incandescent bulbs.

The ballpark also is re-using rain water run-off for landscaping and field irrigation.

Among the organizations in EPA’s Green Power Partnership, the Phillies are the third largest green power purchaser in Philadelphia and seventh largest in Pennsylvania.

Buying green power is an effective way for an organization to reduce its environmental footprint. Green power resources produce electricity with an environmental profile superior to traditional power generation. It also does not produce a net-increase of greenhouse gas emissions.

Now Johnson says the EPA is looking to other professional sports teams to “step up to the plate,” buy green power, and help reduce the environmental impacts associated with conventional electricity use.

The Green Power Partnership includes a wide variety of organizations from Fortune 500 companies, to small and medium businesses, to government institutions, colleges and universities.

Pennsylvania is the only state on the EPA’s Green Power Partner list, ranking 19th nationally.

The commonwealth purchases nearly 30 percent of the electricity it takes to power state operations from clean and renewable sources. Under a contract with Community Energy Inc., the state purchases nearly 280,000 megawatt hours a year from renewable wind and hydroelectric sources.

But only the 157,200 megawatt hours of wind power purchased by the commonwealth qualify for the EPA’s Green Power Partner list.

Overall, more than 950 Green Power Partners are buying over 14 billion kWh of green power annually – the equivalent amount of electricity needed to power nearly 1.5 million average American homes for one year.

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CAMP LEJEUNE, North Carolina, April 23, 2008 (ENS) – They’re calling it Operation Change Out. On Tuesday, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman marked Earth Day by launching a joint campaign with the Defense Department to cut carbon emissions, save energy and save money by changing light bulbs. Those spiral compact fluorescent light bulbs now are wrapped in the red, white and blue.

The two agencies are challenging military bases nationwide to change out the lighting in their on-base housing – replacing the old, energy hogging, incandescent light bulbs with energy efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs, or CFLs.

The U.S. military goes for energy efficiency in
this poster for the Operation Change Out
campaign. (Photo courtesy Energy Star)

At Camp Lejeune, the first U.S. military base to participate in Operation Change Out, Secretary Bodman screwed in compact fluorescent bulb number 17,500 at a home on the base.

“By using energy wisely the military can help us access the cheapest and cleanest source of new energy – the energy we waste each and every day,” the secretary said.

With Base Commanding Officer Col. Richard P. Flatau, Jr., base personnel, residents and their families as well as over 250 school children at the change out ceremony, Bodman said the campaign will help bases across the country increase energy efficiency, save money and reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Changing out the 17,500 bulbs at Camp Lejeune will prevent more than 7.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, save nearly five million kilowatt hours of electricity, and at least $500,000 on energy bills over the lifetime of the bulbs, the secretary said.

An installation team member at Camp Lejeune
changes out one of 17,500 light bulbs.
(Photo courtesy U.S. Dept. of Energy)

He said that changing out the 17,500 bulbs at Camp Lejeune will prevent more than 7.5 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, save nearly five million kilowatt hours of electricity, and also save at least $500,000 on energy bills over the lifetime of the bulbs.

There are more than 200 military facilities located across the United States, so the effect of Operation Change Out could have quite an impact.

Changing one incandescent light bulb to a CFL in every on-base housing unit across the country could could prevent the emissions of more than 95 million pounds of carbon dioxide, the Energy Department says, the equivalent of taking nearly 1,500 cars off the road for one year.

One CFL can save about $30, or more, in electricity costs, the agency says. Those single CFLs add up – to nearly $7 million in energy costs saving over the lifetime of the bulbs.

That single bulb changeout would prevent more than 400 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions over its lifetime, an equivalent of keeping nearly 200 pounds of coal from being burned, according to energy officials.

These spiral light bulbs use 75 percent less energy, last up to 15 times longer, and produce about 75 percent less heat than traditional incandescent models.

Energy Star is a joint program of Energy Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formed in 1992 as a voluntary, market-based partnership that seeks to reduce air pollution through increased energy efficiency.

More than 9,000 organizations have joined as partners committed to improving the energy efficiency of products, homes and businesses. The Energy Star® label appears on more than 50 kinds of consumer products.

Bodman says the Energy Star Operation Change Out campaign will help advance the President’s Executive Order 13423, “Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management,” which directed federal agencies to decrease energy intensity and maximize use of renewable energy.

To learn more about ENERGY STAR®, and to view the revised program requirements, visit EnergyStar.gov or call 1-888-STAR-YES or click here [www.energystar.gov].

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DALLAS, Texas, January 30, 2008 (ENS) – Wind power has propelled the cities of Dallas and Houston onto the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Top 25 list of green power purchasers for the first time.

Dallas took the No. 9 spot by buying 40 percent of its power from wind sources.

Houston has the No. 12 place for using wind power for 20 percent of its electricity needs.

The listing is important to these cities, both of which have been making an effort to comply with federal clean air standards. They are not yet in compliance, but are moving in the right direction.

“Texas leads the nation in wind power production, and Dallas and Houston are leading the way in showing other cities how green power can help protect the environment,” said EPA Regional Administrator Richard Greene. “By shifting to wind and other renewable power sources, cities can cut greenhouse gas emissions and change the way we generate energy.”

EPA’s Green Power Partnership works with more than 850 partner organizations to buy green power voluntarily as a way to reduce the environmental impacts associated with conventional electricity use and to support the development of new, renewable generation resources nationwide.

Overall, EPA Green Power Partners are buying more than 13 billion kilowatt hours of green power annually.

The National Top 25 list represents more than 60 percent of the green power commitments made by all EPA Green Power Partners.

Dallas purchased more than 333 million kilowatt hours of green power and Houston bought 262 million kilowatt hours.

The King Mountain Wind Ranch
near Odessa, Texas (Photo
courtesy Cielo Wind Power)

The total environmental impact of these two purchases is equivalent to avoiding the carbon dioxide emissions of more than 84,000 passenger vehicles annually, or the same amount of electricity needed to power an estimated 61,000 average American homes each year, the EPA said.

“The City of Dallas understands that each of us – every individual, every business, every government must act to protect our environment,” said Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert.

“Clearly, this ranking demonstrates on a national level that our commitment is solid, and I am confident we will continue to be a leader on a local and national level, because it’s the right thing to do for our future,” said Mayor Leppert.

Green power is generated from renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and biogas, as well as low-impact hydropower. These renewable resources produce electricity with an environmental profile superior to conventional power technologies and produce no net increase to greenhouse gas emissions.

“Purchasing green power helps our city become more sustainable and cost-effective, while also sending a message that supporting clean sources of electricity is both a sound business decision and an important choice in reducing harmful emissions,” said Houston Mayor Bill White.

Dallas and Houston also earned places on the Top 10 Local Government list for green power purchases along with the city of Austin and the Austin Independent School District.

More information on EPA’s National Top 25 list of green power purchasers is available at http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/toplists/top25.htm [www.epa.gov].

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NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nevada, December 26, 2007 (ENS) – North America’s largest solar photovoltaic system is now up and generating power at Nellis Air Force Base in the sunny desert of southern Nevada.

The $100 million solar power plant at Nellis will supply about 25 percent of the total power used at the base, where 12,000 people live and work.

The 14 megawatt photovoltaic array will generate more than 30 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. Completed earlier this month, it was inaugurated with a ceremony at Nellis on December 17.

“Nellis, the ‘Home of the Fighter Pilot,’ is now home to the largest solar electric power plant in all of North America,” said Colonel Michael Bartley, Nellis Air Force Base commander.

“The project also provides a future test bed for the Department of Defense to assess the benefits of similar arrangements on installations across the United States,” he said.

Using power generated by the solar array is expected to bring about $1 million in cost savings annually, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 24,000 tons each year.

The solar power array is a joint endeavor that combines technology and systems expertise from SunPower Corporation and financing by MMA Renewable Ventures with discounted purchase commitments by the U.S. Air Force and Nevada Power.

SunPower designed and built the photovoltaic power plant using its proprietary single-axis solar tracking system which follows the sun throughout the day and delivers “up to 30 percent more energy than traditional fixed-tilt ground systems,” the company says.

MMA Renewable Ventures, LLC has financed and will operate the solar power plant, selling electricity to Nellis Air Force Base at a guaranteed fixed rate for the next 20 years.

MMA closed a fund for the system earlier this year with financing commitments from Citi, Allstate, and John Hancock Financial Services, and Merrill Lynch providing construction financing.

Nevada Power will support the project by purchasing Renewable Energy Credits generated by the solar array.

“This solar project at Nellis is a first step of many toward making renewable electricity integral to the operations of the U.S. Air Force,” said Air Force Assistant Secretary William Anderson at the inauguration ceremony.

The solar power array at Nellis
Air Force Base (Photo courtesy
U.S. Air Force)

“As the largest consumer of energy in the federal government, the Air Force is well-positioned to promote both solar technology and new approaches to its implementation,” said Anderson.

“The best way to secure a healthy and prosperous economy is to develop our affordable, reliable local resources,” said Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons, who flipped a switch marking full operation of the system.

“With these 14 megawatts, Nellis Air Force Base is leading the country in solar energy deployment, a move that is good for the environment and our nation’s energy security alike,” he said.

Covering 140 acres of land at the western edge of the Nellis base, the photovoltaic system is made up of 72,000 solar panels.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada congratulated the Air Force, saying, “Nevada and the United States have the technology and natural resources to serve our growing power demand with clean, renewable energy.”

“Solar power is the fastest growing energy resource to help meet our escalating power demand, generating reliable, affordable power without creating emissions or waste,” said SunPower CEO Tom Werner. “We are proud that SunPower was selected by the Air Force to design, supply, and build this hallmark project.”

“Working with partners, such as Nellis Air Force Base, to develop and generate solar energy projects is part of our strategy of providing clean, safe, reliable electricity to our customers at reasonable and predictable prices,” said

“Now that the Nellis solar energy system is on-line, the state of Nevada will be number one in the United States in solar generation per capita,” said Michael Yackira, chief executive officer of Sierra Pacific Resources, parent company of Nevada Power, which plans to expand its investments in renewable energy.

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