No one can deny that McDonald's food service is fast, but up until now it hasn't been very energy efficient.
The company's 32,000 stores spend a whopping $1.5 billion each year on cooking, lighting, heating and cooling.
With some help from Engenuity Systems, Inc., McDonald's expects to cut energy costs by 13.6 percent. Engenuity will install devices to turn off lights at certain times of day and when buildings are empty, as well as air conditioning and heating equipment that monitors temperatures and controls.
Each store location will also be able to set start and stop times for its equipment, so the sundae machines won't automatically turn on at breakfast.
McDonald's is currently testing Engenuity's equipment in Hong Kong and Korea, and expects to roll out the system worldwide later this year.
Just Watch Your Meter Spin
You can monitor all the energy use you want, but it still won't reduce the high demand of HVAC used everyday in these type of boxed buildings. Everday I read how everyone is utilizing the word GREEN or RETRO-FIT. If you want to really save 30% to 50% in HVAC energy consumption they should install the "Demand Buster" designed to RETRO-FIT to there existing HVAC system and really start conserving energy, saving money, and regain investment in 3 years or less!
Robert Vestal
islandsurferboy@gmail.com
Where's the beef?
Of course, one of the biggest energy users in the McDonalds product life cycle are the cows that get turned into burgers. Beef farming in the US is a huge user of energy, as fossil fuels are heavily used to farm corn, the main cattle feed, and it takes a huge amount of corn to make a cow.
Meanwhile, here in Costa Rica where I'm living at present, mountainsides have been stripped of trees in order to graze cattle that are largely shipped to the US to supply places like McDonald's and Burger King.
Part of the reason for cutting energy use is to slow down climate change. Cutting the energy used to cook a product that is extremely energy inefficient to raise, or that causes carbon-fixing rain forests to be chopped down to raise it, doesn't seem like it will do much to address the real problem.
Stay away from beef and you'll be healthier and will have a smaller energy footprint.
Robin from Green-Energy-Efficient-Homes.com.
Shame...
...it won't make its food any better!
www.phlorum.com