Maine's US Coast Guard going green

by Sail-World Cruising on 21 Apr 2010 When some US Coast Guard members aren't out saving sailors' lives, they have been well occupied, 'going Green'.

Coast Guard members in Maine have been working to implement ‘greener’ energy resources that capitalize on the benefits of renewable energy resources including wind energy, photovoltaic cell technology, solar thermal panels, and wood pellet burners - and they are hoping others will follow.

“From an economic security perspective, the price of wood pellets has remained stable for the past several years, whereas the price of #2 heating oil has fluctuated substantially,” said Capt. James McPherson, commander, Coast Guard Sector Northern New England.

With funding from the Coast Guard Innovation Program, a team of Coast Guard personnel in Southwest Harbor researched, purchased, and installed a pellet burner, solar thermal tubes and photovoltaic panels which have created a carbon neutral duplex housing unit (two, single family homes) that is completely severed from the use of 2,300 gallons of fuel oil a year and accounts for more than $5,000 in energy savings annually.

By demonstrating a fully functional ‘net-zero, model green home’ Sector Northern New England hopes these initiatives will serve as an example for other units in the Coast Guard throughout the country to follow.

In honor of Earth Day, Coast Guard crews in Southwest Harbor, Maine, will demonstrate renewable energy resources being utilized at the unit, April 21, 2010.

Members of the Coast Guard Sector Field Office in Southwest Harbor will host an open house for 20 students from the College of the Atlantic, who are studying the physics and mathematics of sustainable energy, to observe how renewable energy sources have been implemented in a Coast Guard-owned housing unit.