Wal-Mart Eyes New ‘Bloom’
by March 8, 2010 12:00 am 77 views
You might’ve heard Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is into the whole “green,” “sustainable” or otherwise “save the planet” trend.
Well, kudos to the company for bringing it back to the collective conscious and even more kudos for the company’s continued efforts, which will hopefully turn a trend into long term global change.
If you’re like us and try to keep tabs on Wal-Mart, you might’ve heard KR Sridhar, CEO of California-based Bloom Energy, tell “60 Minutes'” Lesley Stahl the retailer has been testing his company’s technology along with the likes of FedEx, Google, Ebay and Bank of America.
The Bloom Box, as it’s called, is essentially an on-site power plant that generates electricity from fuel cell technology. The benefit is that it uses about a third of the energy of traditional electric generation methods.
According to Bloom: “Wal-mart has completed installation at two stores in southern California, each at 400kW, generating approximately 3.4 million kWh annually. Each of these sites has the potential to eliminate 1 million pounds of CO2 annually when powered by biogas.”
When we queried Wal-Mart about Bloom, they sent us the following statements from Bill Simmons, chief operating officer of Wal-Mart U.S.:
“As we make progress toward our goal of being supplied by 100 percent renewable energy, we’re considering a number of emerging technologies, including Bloom Energy, and using our scale we can bring these operations to market in a fast and cost effective way.
“So far, the Bloom Energy systems we are testing at two stores in California are performing well. Overall these fuel cells have the potential to provide more than half the energy needs for each store where they are installed-we think that’s significant. Wal-mart will continue to test and evaluate these systems to ensure they meet our business needs while lowering costs for our customers and reducing our impact on the environment.”