Comments

The USA Today article states that Whole Foods will purchase "renewable energy credits" to off-set it's use of electrical power. That's a lot different than actually powering each store by wind-generated energy. It's still a good step in the right direction, though.

Posted by Mike at March 8, 2006 10:44 AM

Loyal to that [Whole Foods] though Tom and Mike - tides' energy, hydroelectric, wind, solar - amazing amount of clean non fossil fuel energy out there to take advantage of.

Posted by Sean at March 8, 2006 10:54 AM

Yipee! Most wind farms require contracts with traditional grid systems Mike. They rarely use. A neighbour of mine manages the wind plant that I can see from my office window here in Dromore West, Co. Sligo. They're certainly getting some input to their storage generators today.

Now, let's re-visit other fuel sources, insulation and construction materials! We're only a few decades behind the early adapters. We can catch up and even surpass them. Let's be the SHOW HOUSE for global SMART-ECO-ENERGY!

Posted by Tom O'Leary at March 8, 2006 11:34 AM

My first thought reading the post was how the hell were they going to power their downtown Pittsburgh store by wind! A very nice alternative, I'd say. My second thought was what a great piece of branding, supporting the products they sell with a sustainable-source infrastructure. Reading the article, this wasn't lost:

"From a branding perspective, it's a stroke of genius," says Barbara Brooks, president of the Strategy Group, a consulting firm. "It shows they understand where their customers are coming from not only nutritionally, but environmentally."

Yup, Whole Foods is proving the DO understand me.

Posted by Ed Di Gangi at March 8, 2006 1:18 PM

Wind energy is the kinetic energy associated with the movement of atmospheric air. It has been used for hundreds of years for sailing, grinding grain, and for irrigation. Wind energy systems for irrigation and milling have been in use since ancient times and since the beginning of the 20th century it is being used to generate electric power.

Five nations – Germany, USA, Denmark, Spain and India – account for 80% of the world’s installed wind energy capacity. Wind energy continues to be the fastest growing renewable energy source with worldwide wind power installed capacity reaching 14,000 MW.
In the Indian context, the states of Tamilnadu and Gujarat lead in the field of wind energy. At the end of March 2000 India had 1080-MWs capacity wind farms, of which Tamilnadu contributed 770-MW capacity. Gujarat has 167MW followed by Andhra Pradesh, which has 88 MW installed wind farms. There are about a dozen wind pumps of various designs providing water for agriculture, afforestation, and domestic purposes, all scattered over the country.

Did you know that India ranks 5th in the world with a total wind power capacity if 1080MW out of which 1025Mw have been established in commercial projects!!

Posted by K.Sriram at March 8, 2006 8:43 PM

Mike, my source was Newsweek, which suggests the Whole Foods deal was wind per se, not the more generic renewable. Of course they won't use the wind to specifically deliver power to the door--instead take full advantage of the grid-trading; the effect is the same, pretty much like the trading of pollution credits.

Posted by tom peters at March 9, 2006 11:00 AM

Yeah, I understood that. I think people were getting the idea that each store was being directly powered by electricity generated by wind. What Whole Foods is doing is the right thing, but different.

Come to think of it, why couldn't they power 160 stores with generators hooked to windmills on the roof? I see electricity being generated by direct wind power in northern Mexico all the time. The power grid does not connect to the vast majority of the outlying estancias and ranchos so they make their own. There are Home-Depot-like windmill stores in most towns. Heck, people in the US used windmills to run water pumps 100+ years ago. Why not again?

Posted by Mike at March 9, 2006 12:05 PM

The one local wind farm here in Co. Sligo can service up to 40,000 homes. Our butcher gets his power fed from their generated source through the grid.

Posted by Tom O'Leary at March 9, 2006 8:58 PM

Much as I hate to say anything favorable about Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM for short), they instituted a similar program for customers last year. In essence, you buy credits against wind-generated energy for 10% of your electric bill; so your bill is a smidgen higher, but they're using the money to expand their wind-generating capabilities, so eventually the percentage will go up and the customer's costs will go down. Sounds like a good thing.

Posted by Paula Lozar at March 10, 2006 11:36 AM