Air Force tops EPA’s clean energy list

Staff report
Posted : Thursday Feb 1, 2007 9:46:58 EST
The Air Force Times

The Air Force is once again at the top of the Environmental Protection Agency’s list of green power purchasers in the federal government, the Air Force announced Wednesday.

This is the third year in a row the Air Force heads the list.

The service in calendar year 2006 purchased 457,500 megawatt-hours of green power, about 4 percent of its annual electricity usage.

Green power includes electricity partially or entirely generated from clean sources such as solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, biomass and hydro. It is considered cleaner than conventional sources of electricity and emits less carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to global warming.

“Purchasing of green power … helps improve our environmental performance, increases demand for renewable resources and it lowers our dependency on fossil fuels and imported energy sources,” Jim Snook, the Air Force’s renewable energy program manager, said in a press release.

The Air Force also was ranked third on the EPA’s Green Power Partnership’s Top 25 Partners, a group that includes government, private industry, trade associations and colleges and universities.

The Air Force has in recent years placed increasing emphasis on purchasing clean power at its bases.

Thirty-seven bases participated in a renewable power purchase program in fiscal year 2006, and three bases purchased 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources.