Apple Doubling Size of Fuel Cell Facility at North Carolina Data Center

[MacRumors]

The Charlotte Observer reports that Apple has filed plans to double the size of its fuel cell facility at its data center in Maiden, North Carolina to 10 megawatts.

Fifty fuel cells adjacent to its $1 billion data center in Maiden are expected to be operating by January, Apple said in papers filed with the N.C. Utilities Commission. It will be fueled by "directed biogas" in which cleaned methane gas from a landfill is injected into a natural gas pipeline. [...]

California-based Apple says the initial 4.8-megawatt phase in Maiden began start-up and testing in October. In November it applied for an amended state permit to increase the project's size.

Fuel cells at Apple's corporate headquarters in Cupertino, California

In North Carolina, Apple is combining its fuel cell facility with two massive solar farms to help achieve the company's goal of using 100% renewable energy at all of its data centers. At its originally planned 4.8-megwatt capacity, Apple's fuel cell facility in North Carolina was already said to be the largest in the United States not owned by a utility company.

Article Link: Apple Doubling Size of Fuel Cell Facility at North Carolina Data Center

[apfeljonas]

Those fuel cells actually look very Apple-like. iCell! Also, great to know they are fuelling it with biogas, much better for the environment than solar and natural gas.

[guitarman777]

We need more pow'r, cap'n! :d

[Chaszmyr]

Awesome. All power-hungry things like data centers should be run on renewable energy.

[RobertMartens]

Originally Posted by Chaszmyr

Awesome. All power-hungry things like data centers should be run on renewable energy.

I find this to be a pointless statement. All electricity is the same and all things use electricity. There are many more houses than data centers, therefore I think all houses should run on renewable energy.

[Chaszmyr]

Originally Posted by RobertMartens

I find this to be a pointless statement. All electricity is the same and all things use electricity. There are many more houses than data centers, therefore I think all houses should run on renewable energy.

Yes, but it's a lot easier to say "you're building some big new thing that is going to require a lot of power, you should also build a way to power it" than it is to tell someone they should provide renewable energy to the hundreds of millions of houses that are scattered around the country. Gotta start somewhere.

[badNameErr]

Originally Posted by Chaszmyr

All power-hungry things like data centers should be run on renewable energy.

"All things should be run on renewable energy."


Fixed that for you.

[sransari]

Originally Posted by badNameErr

"All things should be run on renewable energy."


Fixed that for you.

a lot of renewable energy is just silly and results in negative net energy (more energy consumed in production than energy gained)...not to mention extra real-estate used for low-efficiency solar panels, windmills, etc.

So everything should run on positive net energy sources or energy sources that output the least amount of entropy.

Hippies need to realize that there's no free lunch here. Entropy is always increasing, no matter what you do. These green initiatives often increase entropy more than coal-burning.

[Swordylove]

Those are some very good-lookin fuel cells. I wouldn't mind having one of those in my yard.

[mertyz]

There should be a law forcing all data centers to be environment-friendly.

[Mr. Retrofire]

Originally Posted by mertyz

There should be a law forcing all data centers to be environment-friendly.

Says the SUV driver. ;-)

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Originally Posted by TrentS

I can't wait for the Jesse Ventura conspiracy show on how Apple and its fuel cell facilities are going to take over the world, with the help of "skinwalker" aliens and magnate Robert Bigelow.

"What the heck are they building there? A gateway portal to another dimension?! And we ask questions, and all we get are straight answers? Something smells funny here."

What is your problem?

[Rocketman]

Methane is the most abundant uncollected or wasted energy source on the planet. That way no matter the source these fuel cells can use them. Recovering methane from landfills is a solution waiting for a need and thus is seen as "very green" in this political environment (Solyndra, etc.). No matter the source methane is among the most green and efficient and available fuel sources.

Rocketman

cite:

http://www.bloomenergy.com/clean-energy/

http://www.bloomenergy.com/fuel-cell...ell-animation/

[TrentS]

I can't wait for the Jesse Ventura conspiracy show on how Apple and its fuel cell facilities are going to take over the world, with the help of "skinwalker" aliens and magnate Robert Bigelow.

"What the heck are they building there? A gateway portal to another dimension?! And we ask questions, and all we get are straight answers? Something smells funny here."

[Battlefield Fan]

In other news Greenpeace is still extremely unhappy with Apple...

[saving107]

So Apple is Doubling Down on Fuel Cell.

[rmwebs]

Originally Posted by apfeljonas

Those fuel cells actually look very Apple-like. iCell! Also, great to know they are fuelling it with biogas, much better for the environment than solar and natural gas.

Those arent fuel cells, that's the new Mac Pro design

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Originally Posted by Allenbf

Will this mean less downtime for iMessage?

Nope. More power and more servers in the same place will not fix that issue. Apple needs to get themselves a real cloud - not a fake one. Only that will fix iMessage and Facetime reliability.

[petsounds]

Is this due to increased load demands at the data center, or was this fueled (pardon the pun) by post-Sandy worries about uptime in the face of increasingly severe storms?

[Mr. Retrofire]

Originally Posted by petsounds

Is this due to increased load demands at the data center, or was this fueled (pardon the pun) by post-Sandy worries about uptime in the face of increasingly severe storms?

I think they avoid additional costly, long and inefficient power lines. Apples NC data center needs 20 Megawatt of power.

[Liquorpuki]

Originally Posted by petsounds

Is this due to increased load demands at the data center, or was this fueled (pardon the pun) by post-Sandy worries about uptime in the face of increasingly severe storms?

Probably just trying to offset as much load as possible so they don't have to buy as much from Duke Energy.

That and the redundancy will help when they have to take one of the installations offline for maintenance or other reasons.

[satcomer]

Originally Posted by apfeljonas

Those fuel cells actually look very Apple-like. iCell! Also, great to know they are fuelling it with biogas, much better for the environment than solar and natural gas.

They look like the gel battery packs we used in US Army Signal Building UPS Room in the mid 90's.

[firesuite]

Maybe now we can have more than 25,000 songs in iTunes Match.

[carlgo]

Methane is good, hydrogen is the holy grail for powering fuel cells. I saw a hydrogen fuel cell Honda on the freeway while traveling for Thanksgiving.

Cold fusion is real. My wife has known the secret for some time now...(drum roll).