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.

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.

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In yet another sustainable step forward for NASCAR, the racing organization has just gained the first entry in its new “green” sponsor category. Liberty Tire Recycling has been tapped as the official tire recycler of the MAKE #50 Motorsports Chevy Silverado race team, in the Camping World Truck Series.

The high visibility green sponsorships are just the latest forward-thinking move for NASCAR, which is emerging as an important force in the mainstreaming of recycling, conservation, toxic chemicals reduction, renewable energy, and other key sustainability concepts.

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Pennsylvania’s Pocono Raceway, known to NASCAR fans as the “Tricky Triangle” for its unusual layout, is now home to a gigantic 40,000 panel solar power installation.  The new solar array broke ground last year and just went online this week.  It is expected to generate about 72 million kilowatt hours of clean power over a 20-year lifespan, and it is believed to be the largest solar installation at a sports facility in the world.

The new solar array will offset more electricity than the raceway uses, leaving enough left over to power about 1,000 homes.  The track’s owner, Dr. Joseph Mattioli, sees the $18 million investment in solar energy as a potential profit center for the facility, and he foresees the potential for future expansion.  If he can make it work, don’t be surprised to see solar panels sprouting up at other points on the NASCAR circuit in the near future.

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Allentown, the city that songwriter Billy Joel used as a symbol of 1980’s Rust Belt decline, is showing more signs of an economic revival powered by clean, renewable energy and new energy storage solutions.  One indication came earlier this year, when hometown manufacturer International Battery announced that it won a new contract to supply lithium-ion batteries for NASA, for use in developing the space agency’s new “smart” energy storage systems. Now another manufacturer, Air Products, has announced plans to build a 1.5 megawatt solar installation that will provide about half the energy used in its corporate headquarters in Allentown, with the help of a state alternative energy grant.

Both of these projects illustrate the important role that government will play in the development of a safer and less risky energy future for the U.S., just as the government has provided billions to support the oil, coal and gas industries.  Allentown is also an example of a city that supports private industry while also putting public sector resources to work for the public good, as aptly demonstrated by the city’s own photovoltaic installation at its public works department.

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If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck – or a really great ducklike thingamajig.  Apply that maxim to energy, and you get some insight into why more Americans are shedding fossil fuels in favor of wind power and other forms of clean, renewable energy.  After all, if it gets the same job done at far lower risk and with less cost over the long run, what’s not to like? Case in point: even though the housing market has not recovered from its crash, sales of small home-scaled wind turbines increased last year by almost 10,000 units.

The wind turbine sales report was just released by the American Wind Energy Association (naturally), fresh on the heels of its new collaboration with the United Steel Workers labor union and other partners to push for more green jobs through a national renewable energy policy. To hammer home the point, AWEA sent a gigantic 131-foot made-in-the-U.S.A. wind turbine blade  to Congress, inscribed with 6,000 signatures from wind power and green jobs supporters.  And guess who partnered in that ?  GE.  That’s right, GE.

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As part of the U.S. military’s broad adoption of sustainability principles, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been undergoing a historic mission shift.  In the past, the Corps performed remediation as a sidebar to other projects.  Now it is now focusing its considerable resources on environmental restoration for its own sake, including an all-out push to save the marsh islands of Jamaica Bay in New York City from disappearing.

The deployment of military resources for proactive environmental restoration has already enabled the Corps and its numerous partners (including The Conservation Fund) to build up a rich store of experience in marshlands restoration, which could play a key role in helping the Gulf state coastal communities preserve their remaining marshlands,  recover from the disastrous BP oil spill, and determine the course of their economic future.

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The U.S. Army’s a new best friend when it comes to recycling waste, conserving energy and keeping hazardous materials out of the waste stream is a chipmunk – a Kurt Chipmunk, that is.  The Kurt Chipmunk is a new energy efficient metal compactor and recycler installed at the Tobyhanna Army Depot in Pennsylvania, and its success there could mark a big step forward in defense-related waste reduction initiatives.

In terms of green tech a metal compactor is not quite as glamorous as other U.S. military programs such as microbial fuel cells or portable solar power, but in addition to environmental goodness the Chipmunk offers significant bottom line benefits that could motivate private industry to invest in sustainable new technology sooner rather than later.

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Since its discovery in 2004, graphene has become the “Flat Stanley” of the sustainable new millennium.  A two-dimensional material that seems to be popping up just about everywhere in nanomaterials research, graphene has wowed scientists with its potential for, among other things, replacing silicon in computer chips as a light, durable, ultra-compact, low cost, high-efficiency conductor.  Now researchers at Rice University have conceived a material that pairs the conducting properties of graphene with an insulating variant called graphane.

Rice University writer Mike Williams, who came up with the Flat Stanley moniker, explains that the new development could lead to an even smaller class of electronics than is possible with graphene alone.  Though a permanent solution to e-waste is years away, at least the graphene-graphane connection could help reduce the sheer bulk of the problem.

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Since its discovery in 2004, graphene has become the “Flat Stanley” of the sustainable new millennium.  A two-dimensional material that seems to be popping up just about everywhere in nanomaterials research, graphene has wowed scientists with its potential for, among other things, replacing silicon in computer chips as a light, durable, ultra-compact, low cost, high-efficiency conductor.  Now researchers at Rice University have conceived a material that pairs the conducting properties of graphene with an insulating variant called graphane.

Rice University writer Mike Williams, who came up with the Flat Stanley moniker, explains that the new development could lead to an even smaller class of electronics than is possible with graphene alone.  Though a permanent solution to e-waste is years away, at least the graphene-graphane connection could help reduce the sheer bulk of the problem.

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The U.S. Navy has been placing a well-aimed barrage of funding toward sustainable new energy technology in recent years, including new solar installations at naval bases, high-efficiency desalination systems, and even camelina biofuel for Navy fighter jets.  Now the Office of Naval Research has upped the ante with grants for nine new green tech research projects. The grants go to the nine winners of a clean energy challenge that the Navy issued at its recent Naval Energy Forum. The awards underscore the importance of new sustainable technology for Naval operations, but the Office of Naval Research also observes that investing more money in new technology is only part of the solution.

In order to effect a broad new approach to energy, the Navy needs to implement a sweeping “policy change to help make the necessary cultural shifts in how its people think about energy use and the decisions they make in all settings, including acquisition, tactical and shore use.”  It’s a call for introspection that political leaders in the civilian sector should take to heart.

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