The Department of Defense is seeking to dramatically reduced it’s 4 billion dollar a year energy bill and make it’s bases less dependant on the commercial electricity grid. Reporter Dan Stork says a recent story in the Desert Sun newspaper outlined some of the plans that will affect our own 29 Palms Marine Base…
The Department of Defense (DoD) could generate 7,000 megawatts of solar energy¬equivalent to the output of seven nuclear power plants¬on four military bases located in the California desert, according to a study released Friday. The study finds that, even though 96 percent of the surface area of the nine bases studied in California and Nevada is unsuited for solar development because of military use, endangered species and other factors, the solar-compatible area is nevertheless large enough to generate more than 30 times the electricity consumed by the California bases, or about 25 percent of the renewable energy that the State of California is requiring utilities to use by 2015.
Of the estimated 50,000 acres that are deemed suitable or even “questionably suitable” for solar development at Edwards Air Force Base, China Lake, Fort Irwin, and the Marine Corps Ground Air Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, only 553 acres are at MCGACC. Jim Ricker, assistant chief of staff at MCAGCC’s Community Plans Liaison Office, as quoted in the Desert Sun, said, “We are looking to do a private-party venture for a photovoltaic solar field in the near future”.
