Being green just got a whole lot easier.
The Dickinson Theodore Roosevelt Regional Airport is the second airport in the country to sign on to the new national Adopt-A-Watt program.
Like the Adopt-A-Highway program, corporations use some of their marketing budget to get their names in front of the public via signs, while at the same time performing a public service. With the Adopt-A-Watt program, though, the sign also is solar panel.
"It's very, very timely. The whole program is designed to help reduce America's dependence on foreign oil and to help protect the environment, which everyone is becoming more and more aware of all the time," said Thomas Wither, founder of the Adopt-A-Watt program.
For the airport, being a part of the program makes it easier for them to use alternative energy sources, starting with the sponsored solar panel.
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"It is a functioning device," Wither said. "It does help reduce electrical energy, and also then, it helps to raise money."
The raised money that does not go to Adopt-A-Watt for operation and maintenance costs goes to the airport to use for other alternative energy sources. Wither said those sources could be for buying vehicles and equipment that use either bio-diesel or ethanol, as well as for the alternative fuels themselves.
"It's designed to help encourage government agencies to make the transition over to 21st century clean energy," Wither said.
Dickinson airport Manager Matt Remynse said his hope is to use the money from the solar panel to buy mowing equipment that runs on bio-diesel. He said, though, nothing is set in stone, especially as the Adopt-A-Watt program is currently looking for a sponsor.
"We want to become the eBay of clean energy funding," Wither said of sponsorship. "It ends up being a 30-day auction so that we can maximize the amount of return to the airport, maximize the contribution and also allow sponsors the opportunity to select a location that fits their individual needs."
He said there is not a set bid price because the hope is to have people continue to bid higher to maximize the amount the airport can receive. The bidding process for the Dickinson airport has not yet begun at the program's Web site, www.adopt-a-watt.com .
Big thinking
Remynse said being a part of the Adopt-A-Watt program is a piece of a large plan to make the airport more environmentally friendly.
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He said Dickinson Airport Authority Board member Jon Frantsvog had conversations with former airport Manager Charity Speich about going green and using solar panels.
"It wasn't new for the airport to be more environmentally friendly," Remynse said.
In fact, Frantsvog said he and Speich went so far as to begin talks with the North Dakota Department of Energy to review the idea of using wind energy. He said the idea never came to fruition because of the high cost associated with wind towers, as well as the fact a municipal entity doesn't qualify for the rebates and tax credits others could get.
Frantsvog said, though, the airport uses an alternative energy source in the form of ground-water heat recovery in its commercial terminal and the Airport Rescue and Firefighting building.
"It consumes about one-third the energy those buildings would have consumed had we gone with conventional heat," Frantsvog said.
He said the Adopt-A-Watt program is an intriguing concept and a visual way for the airport to show it's using green energy sources.
But it's not just the airport that's thinking big. Wither said he is in discussions with dozens of airports of all sizes, working to have them use the sponsored solar panels. He said the program also has approval to put solar panels on the nation's right of ways.
"Our whole idea is we want to start a chain reaction, starting at high-profile, public places like this, so that the public will get involved with it," Wither said. "This thing is really going to take off, excuse the pun there, at the airports."
