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Hawaiian Marine Corps Base Seeks Energy Self-Sufficiency Using Renewables

The Marine Corps wants its base at Kaneohe Bay to become energy self-sufficient by 2015. One step toward that goal involves building a sizable solar power array around Kansas Tower Hill, which could be operating by next fall.

The plan also includes a power generation plant that will run primarily on locally grown biofuels, such as those derived from sugar cane or palm oil, or jet fuel in emergencies.

“I’m 100 percent sure” the plan will make the base energy independent by 2020, but I want to be more aggressive in that goal, and I want to get there by 2015,” Col. Robert Rice, commanding officer of Marine Corps Base Hawaii, told The Honolulu Advertiser.

The Corps’ effort is one of several that the Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Army are studying for their installations in Hawaii, where fossil fuels must be shipped in, increasing their cost. For example, a 12-foot-diameter yellow cylinder called a PowerBuoy that floats a mile offshore from the Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps Base generates electricity as part of a wave-power research program. Eventually, an array of such buoys could generate as much as 100 MW.

The military is the nation’s and Hawaii’s largest energy consumer. In Hawaii, the services currently use about 15% of the power generated by the Hawaiian Electric Co.

Federal law requires U.S. agencies to produce or procure 3% of their energy usage from renewable sources by next year, with incremental increases to that goal in subsequent years. Another statute specifically requires military installations to produce or purchase 25% of their energy from renewable sources by 2025.

Sources: Marine Corps Times, AP

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