Following close on the heels of the U.S. Army, which just activated its first wind power project at the Tooele Army Depot in Utah, the U.S. Coast Guard is diving into wind power, too. The new turbine has been installed at the Coast Guard’s Southwest Harbor Base in Maine.
[social_buttons]
The new turbine is only rated at 2.4 kilowatts, but in this case, size doesn’t matter. What really matters is that the U.S. military has historically been very cautious about adopting wind power partly due to concerns over radio interference, but now with two branches of the armed services getting their feet wet, perhaps a tipping point is near and more clean, renewable wind power is in store across the Department of Defense.
The U.S. Coast Guard and Sustainability
The wind turbine is actually part of a more ambitious program to achieve a net zero carbon footprint for housing at the Southwest Harbor base. As reported by Rich Hewitt in the Bangor Daily News, other renewable energy steps at Southwest include solar panels and solar hot water heaters, along with new electrical systems and improved insulation. An old oil burner was also replaced with a new pellet boiler.
The U.S. Military and Sustainability
When it comes to sustainability, the three largest branches of the armed services have been grabbing all the headlines, from the Army’s new focus on geothermal energy to the Navy’s solar installations and the Air Force’s forays into biofuels. The U.S. Marines are also getting into the act, for example with new portable suitcase-sized solar installations for field use, so it’s good to see the Coast Guard make the leap, too.
Image: Coast Guard lifeboat by mikebaird on flickr.com.
Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica, want to advertise, or want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Autonomous Drones for Better Farming
I don't like paywalls. You don't like paywalls. Who likes paywalls? Here at CleanTechnica, we implemented a limited paywall for a while, but it always felt wrong — and it was always tough to decide what we should put behind there. In theory, your most exclusive and best content goes behind a paywall. But then fewer people read it! We just don't like paywalls, and so we've decided to ditch ours. Unfortunately, the media business is still a tough, cut-throat business with tiny margins. It's a never-ending Olympic challenge to stay above water or even perhaps — gasp — grow. So ...
