Mar 16 2010

The Rock and the Seashore Go Solar

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

In the 1974 TV show “The FBI versus Alvin Karpis, Public Enemy Number One,” the bank robber and kidnapper, known as “Creepy Karpis,” tells his sidekick, “I’m sick and tired of everybody goin’ green . . .”

Karpis, who held the record for longest attendance as a non-paying guest at Alcatraz (1936-1962), would be really sick and tired to learn just how green his former B&B-on-the-Bay is going these days.

The National Park Service recently announced plan to use federal stimulus funds to install some 1,360 solar panels on the main prison and laundry buildings to replace much of the power now provided by two noisy and dirty diesel generators.

"There are about 1 million visitors to Alcatraz a year and we want to make it a showplace for green energy," said Michael Feinstein, a spokesman for the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Actually, it will be a showcase in concept only—and a good thing, too. In order to preserve the historic nature of the site, most of the panels will be carefully hidden from view by walls around the prison roof.

Thanks to smart contracting, the park service managed to stretch its original budget from last year, freeing up $129 million for new projects, of which the Alcatraz solar program is one.

Another of those new projects will be seven new solar installations at Point Reyes National Seashore to complement six existing photovoltaic systems at the park. Together they will “reduce its total annual electrical consumption from fossil fuels by more than 45 percent,” the facility estimates, “moving the park closer to Pacific West Region’s vision of carbon neutrality by 2016, the year the National Park Service celebrates its centennial.”

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