It’s hard to think of a mammoth Wal-Mart (WMT) Supercenter as a green building but on Friday the retail giant will open the first of what it calls its high-efficiency stores. The Kansas City, Missouri, Supercenter incorporates a number of technologies that Wal-Mart says will slash energy consumption by 20 percent. Given the massive size of a Wal-Mart Supercenter – the Kansas Cty story is 197,000 square feet – that should have a not insignificant impact on electricity demand – and greenhouse gas emissions – as the company opens more high-efficiency stores. Much of the energy savings comes from the Kansas City store’s heating and air-conditioning systems. The store uses water – which has a higher heat-carrying capacity than air – for heating and cooling. For instance, waste heat from the stores refrigeration cases is recycled for use in the heating and cooling systems. The Kansas City store uses LED lighting in its refrigerated cases as such lights consume less energy and emit less heat than conventional lighting. Sensors detect when a customer is approaching and turns on the lights; otherwise they remain off. LED lighting alone can reduce a store’s energy consumption by 2 to 3 percent, according to Wal-Mart. The Kansas City store has has been built with skylights and sensors will lower or turn off store’s electric lighting depending on how much natural light is available. Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar says the second of four high-efficiency store to be built this year will open in Rockton, Illinois, in the spring. Some features of the Kansas City City, such as the LED lighting, are being installed in all new Wal-Mart stores.
The Greening of the Supercenter: Wal-Mart Opens its First High-Efficiency Store
January 18, 2007 by Todd Woody
Green Wombat 
Walmart should first take care of its workers by paying them a lot of green notes. They behave like Jamaican contractors who constantly preach and oppose slavery but they are active participants in sustaining slave conditions by relying upon illegal workers whom they can under pay and mistreat.
I love Walmart. I love their stores and low prices and the layout and ease of shopping. So do most Americans, except a few like Misty who talk like left wing communists and don’t have an entrepreneurial American bone in their body. Maybe Misty should try shopping at the state run store in Havana Cuba. It would probably be right up her alley. I know a few people who work at Walmart, and they love their jobs and the company. I think Walmart does a good job and is a conscientious company. People like Misty are misguided un American fools.
Un-American? Putting a company before people is un-American. Henery Ford found you could pay and treat your workers well and still make a profit. Isn’t that enough? Walmart perpetuates Communism and repression in countries like China and hurts the American economy. Almost everything I own was made in America.
walmart is not not cool
Walmart has destroyed most localized economies for small business owners. They are activist against free speach by only allowing censored content in their stores and even banning some media due to its content. They pay crap. I applied once and was hired but never worked for the company just so I could know what their pay and benifits were like. $7.35/hr based on my previous experience for dock work. I was making twice that doing something almost exactly the same at a regionally based grociery distributor. Walmart is the direct reflection of modern American laziness. All-in-one super store to minimize thought and movement. It was once a revolution to utilize the assembly line to mass produce. Now its just a way to get rich and ignore the poor. Get fat and waste all your money as quickly as possible so that you’re just another fat lazy ape shitting yourself in this quickly decaying society and completely repulsive culture we Americans have dug ourselves into. Sadly I can’t say I’m any better.
EJisaidoit – should be EJisaNidiot and Henry Ford was his name – not Henery.
David – grocery does not have an ‘i’ in it, localized is not quite the word you were looking for, speech does not have an ‘a’. And if you don’t like the pay, don’t work there. Free country, right?