LOS ANGELES - The United States is calling out the military to help it win the global war for clean energy, building solar farms at bases and funding research.
U.S. military leaders hope the surge will help secure energy security at home and abroad, but the strategy could also boost the solar industry and soothe critics who fear the United States is lagging China and other nations in clean technology.
For some, the military's focus evokes China's top-down orders to expand its own solar and wind industries and use more alternative energy at home.
"The (Department of Defense) is kind of like China. When the DoD says 'do this thing,' this thing gets done," said Dan Nolan, an Army veteran who started a consultancy, Sabot 6 Inc, to connect green energy companies with government agencies.
Federal mandates require U.S. forces to cut energy use by about a third by 2015 and to obtain a quarter of their energy needs from solar and other clean power by 2025.
Sprawling desert bases will install shiny black and blue solar panels and other solar technology -- so far with enough combined power to match that of two mid-sized coal plants -- as private companies look to lease land from the military and sell power back to a solid customer that wants energy security and other customers, too.
"We recognized that we were big emitters as well as big fuel users," said Jerry Hansen, the U.S. Army's senior energy executive, in an interview.
Meanwhile, federal lab scientists are working to make the technology cheaper and more efficient to improve fighting capability -- solar-powered radios could help soldiers abroad.
Solar power companies, including SunPower Corp, Japan's Sharp Corp and Ascent Solar Technologies Inc, eye a growing market that could also help spread the use of solar power in the Unites States as well.
MAJOR INSTALLATIONS
Toward its mission, the U.S. Army plans to install a 500- megawatt solar project with a unit of Spain's Acciona SA and Clark Energy Group at Fort Irwin in California's Mojave desert.
Developers could grow it to 1 gigawatt plan to use both photovoltaic panels that turn sunlight into electricity and concentrated solar power that uses the sun's heat to create steam and turn turbines for electricity.
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