President Obama was talking about the power of the sun today at the nation’s largest solar array.

This story from Wired.com says the president visited Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada to highlight the base’s king-sized solar array as part of the military’s green efforts, which has included biodiesel generators in Baghdad, thousands of electric vehicles and wind farms at bases around the country:

The 140-acre array, made from more than 72,000 solar panels, went online in December, 2007. It’s designed to generate more than 30 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.

“That’s the equivalent of powering about 13,200 homes during the day. It’s a project that took about half a year to complete, created 200 jobs, and will save the U.S. Air Force, which is the largest consumer of energy in the federal government, nearly $1 million a year,” Obama said. “It will also reduce harmful carbon pollution by 24,000 tons a year, which is the equivalent of removing 4,000 cars from our roads. Most importantly, this base serves as a shining example of what’s possible when we harness the power of clean, renewable energy to build a new, firmer foundation for economic growth.”

The article goes on to point out that the stimulus bill has given the military $300 million to fund more than 50 energy research projects. Another solar array, this time a 500-megawatt solar array at Ft. Irwin, California that would dwarf the Nellis project, is in the works.