Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

gigabytex

macrumors newbie
Sep 12, 2012
4
0
Do you know what the alternative is? It's destroy 100 acres somewhere else to extract fossil fuels. Then in X years after that area is depleted, pick another 100 acres somewhere else to destroy. Repeat every X years. So destroy one area vs destroy multiple areas. And you're advocating destroying multiple areas.

Please, natural gas extraction is not nearly as wasteful of natural space as this solar farm. Not to mention much more energy produced per acre of space than what you're seeing in this photo.
 

makingdots

macrumors 6502
Aug 14, 2008
312
201
Complains, complains everywhere. No one lives there anyways except animals.

Just think that Apple's 1 billion server farm serves millions of people worldwide.
 

phillipduran

macrumors 65816
Apr 30, 2008
1,055
607
I wonder how much energy was expended on manufacturing, packaging, shipping and installing these panels? ;)
 

Stephen123

macrumors regular
Sep 3, 2007
184
11
Apple bulldozed a 100 acre forest to install solar panels, and Greenpeace is happy about this? Ironically the so-called "green" energy sources are literally destroying our environment while a "dirty" natural gas plant would in reality be essentially harmless. That's our politically correct times for you.

This is completely false. Natural Gas in the US is produced primarily by Fracking which makes it more destructive than burning oil and poisonous to the people who live near where it is collected.
 

foobarbaz

macrumors 6502a
Nov 29, 2007
874
1,962
Stop arguing about what is green and what isn't until you give a definition what "green" means.

Given a strict enough definition, even breathing out has negative effects.
 

Ugg

macrumors 68000
Apr 7, 2003
1,992
16
Penryn
Based on the aerial photo it looks like it was installed here:


So, about half the land was clear, half trees.

I would say that 1/4th was trees, 1/4th was shrubs and the other half open land. There's a big difference between a 100 year old tree and a five year old shrub.
 

gugy

macrumors 68040
Jan 31, 2005
3,891
5,309
La Jolla, CA
WOW impressive.
I wished I could afford to put solar panels at my home. The cost is just too high even with all the rebates and incentives.
It would take at least 10 years to recoup the investment. That's just ridiculous. :mad:
 

hexor

macrumors 6502
Nov 26, 2002
271
88
Minnesota
Rational Person: It's their land, they are free to do with it as they please.

This attitude is what gets us in trouble. If everyone had their own way there would not be anything left on this planet. Everyone would dam rivers, drain wetlands, clear cut forests, etc.. oh wait.. they already do that and now we have to put laws in place preventing people from doing this because some people actually realize what you do on your land extends past your property boundaries.
 

hexor

macrumors 6502
Nov 26, 2002
271
88
Minnesota
Roof?

Why in gods name did they not at least put some on the roof??? It is insane that they did not design the building to have solar panels on the roof. They already took out the trees for the building footprint why not use it for the panels as well???
 

Rocketman

macrumors 603
Apple's not gonna build a nuke plant or a natural gas plant or a coal plant. It's not a utility or a corporation that sells electricity to utilities.

Do you know what the alternative is? It's destroy 100 acres somewhere else to extract fossil fuels. Then in X years after that area is depleted, pick another 100 acres somewhere else to destroy.
I think Apple actually has a gas fired generator at one of its plants, Oregon I think, and sells excess power back to the utility. If Apple were in the sub-business of installing the greenest possible power generation at most of its locations and reselling it to the utilities it would reduce the transmission loss which would be very green and would provide base load and peak time capacity which is desperately needed on a greener than now basis.

As for drilling destroying the land, simply not true. Drill rigs are so small this one is in the parking lot of the Long beach, CA McDonald's!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epw38YmOkcs

Rocketman
 

lkrupp

macrumors 68000
Jul 24, 2004
1,877
3,804
Greenpeace to Apple: Look at how many trees you cut down for this!

PITA to Apple: Look at how many forest animals lost their homes for this!

And just think much of that acreage could have been used to grow food for those starving babies in Africa. EVIL Apple!

Damned if they do and damned if they don't. Such is the life of the most valuable company in the world.

/sarcasm
 

lilweeds

macrumors newbie
Jun 16, 2010
23
0
And BTW the amount of dangerous chemicals in those panels and what has to be done to extract them, is MORE dangerous then extracting fossil fuels.
 

JHankwitz

macrumors 68000
Oct 31, 2005
1,911
58
Wisconsin
So it's ok to knock down tress for solar panels.....

You obviously have no idea how many trees are consumed every day. Just one printing plant uses over 20,000 miles of paper 4 feet wide every day, and they're not running out of trees because their tree farms produce faster than what is being consumed. The trees cut for the Apple's project would be less than cut for Christmas trees for a few hundred people at most.

Also, the energy saved that would otherwise be created from bio products far outweighs the energy put out by this solar field every second.
 

darkplanets

macrumors 6502a
Nov 6, 2009
853
1
The moral of this story is:
You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

You can never please everybody.
 

JHankwitz

macrumors 68000
Oct 31, 2005
1,911
58
Wisconsin
Why in gods name did they not at least put some on the roof??? It is insane that they did not design the building to have solar panels on the roof. They already took out the trees for the building footprint why not use it for the panels as well???

Rooftop solar pannels are far too expensive to physically support and maintain, especially in a snow climate.

----------

The moral of this story is:
You're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

You can never please everybody.

Especially the uneducated clueless children.
 

brent1a

macrumors member
Jan 9, 2005
58
4
WOW impressive.
I wished I could afford to put solar panels at my home. The cost is just too high even with all the rebates and incentives.
It would take at least 10 years to recoup the investment. That's just ridiculous. :mad:

I've said this time and time again:
Only those with vast sums of wealth (companies who need to be PC and have disposable income etc) can afford to go "green" or "self-sustaining" or "renewable". Otherwise it doesn't pay off because the cost of doing so is so high. The return will never materialize for small guys/homeowners like me.
It's going to be like this for at least the next 150 years because nuclear power has once again become the unnecessary pariah when in fact it's the one thing that could solve so many problems.
Solar power, wind turbines, they do not pay off in the long run except if you can afford them (vast sums of disposable income) or if you can afford to offset the inefficiency with larger and larger installations.
 
Last edited:

brent1a

macrumors member
Jan 9, 2005
58
4
And BTW the amount of dangerous chemicals in those panels and what has to be done to extract them, is MORE dangerous then extracting fossil fuels.

Hey, Hey! Thats stupid talk!
Bringing that up is like bringing up what we're supposed to do with the tons and tons of battery chemicals in all these super-awesome non-selling electric cars thats being forced down our gullets.

"I feel so warm and fuzzy that I can drive 25-40 miles one way on a charge but it's not my problem when in 10-15 years the 600lbs battery needs replaced and it takes just as much if not more processing to decommission an old electric car battery than it does spent nuclear fuel."
 

apolloa

Suspended
Oct 21, 2008
12,318
7,802
Time, because it rules EVERYTHING!
That looks so cool.. :cool:

I think it would have been cooler if they implemented that system where you have a tower with a water tank system at the top, you then utilise motorised mirrors to heat the water up and it in turn is turned into steam which then powers a steam generator.

Not saying it's any better or worst, just looks cooler haha.

It would be good if they could use renewable resources for the new Polo mint office they are building.
 

brent1a

macrumors member
Jan 9, 2005
58
4
As for drilling destroying the land, simply not true. Drill rigs are so small this one is in the parking lot of the Long beach, CA McDonald's!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epw38YmOkcs

Rocketman

Correct. Like if they ever let them drill in ANWAR out of the millions upon millions of acres the actual drilling operation would use something like 0.5% of the overall land mass.

The hypocrisy of the Greenie Terrorists is astounding. They're fine with Apple destroying 30% 0f the trees on it's property for solar panel installations but yet they're not OK with letting us drill the billions of gallons of oil out of ANWAR using 0.5% of millions of acres land.
They're also not OK letting us use basement size nuclear fuel power plants to power small towns for 100-150 years in which there would be no outside consumption of fossil fuel. Because even though the spent fuel would be 99.9% not dangerous that is more dangerous than continuing fossil fuel consumption.

In the end groups like Greenpeace simply want to drive the advancement of mankind back to the stone age.....all the while they use technology like it's going to go out of style.
 

CFreymarc

Suspended
Sep 4, 2009
3,969
1,149
Did Greenpeace ever make any peace? :confused:

If you really want to know the dirt about Greenpeace, I suggest you read "Blown to Green Pieces" and a few other non-biased investigative reports on these guys. Of all these reports, there are allegations of:

* While Greenpeace is non-profit, many connected to them short stocks of the companies they publicly criticized for personal profit.

* Many living on the Rainbow Warrior reside at sea avoiding extraditions.

* They only promote saving "cute" animals thus redirecting paternal instincts away from child-rearing and toward their political cause.

* Many of their "environmental crime" photos have been examined by photo-analysis experts exposing them as Photoshopped beyond simple color correction editing.

* The active suppression of capitalism claiming it is "bad for the planet" while promoting socialist agenda. History shows, socialist government have a far greater history of environmental abuse than free market economies.

* A "Logan's Run" society where over 90% of volunteers or minimum wage Greenpeace employees are terminated at age 30 to recruit younger and more attractive activists.

It goes on and on. IMO, if Greenpeace complains about you, consider it a badge of honor that you are doing something right.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.