I remember Greenpeace doing another bit of their usual Apple-bashing a while ago by claiming that Apple was building its data center in an area where much energy is produced from non-renewable sources like coal. Apart from the severe error in logic (if Apple built in an area where energy comes from renewable sources, the added demand would mean more "non-green" energy would have to be imported from outside or less "green" energy would be exported), this should just nicely shut them up.
Unless Greenpeace somehow finds an argument that solar energy is bad when Apple does it.
Not a water tower. A reservoir holding a few million cubic meters of water. Which is a very effective way to use electricity produced in the night, unless you can find a way to change the energy production of a coal power station at the press of a button. (They take about 24 hours to go from zero to full capacity. You just cannot reduce the output of a coal power station in the night in any meaningful way. Once the water is in the reservoir, you can use it to supply energy on demand within minutes).
Shows you don't have a clue. The energy used is energy that would otherwise have been wasted. And without it, you would get brownouts at times of peak demand or waste even more energy.
Unless Greenpeace somehow finds an argument that solar energy is bad when Apple does it.
This reminds me of people who would pump water from a pool of some sort into a water tower at night and then release the water back to the pool through a turbine during the day.
Not a water tower. A reservoir holding a few million cubic meters of water. Which is a very effective way to use electricity produced in the night, unless you can find a way to change the energy production of a coal power station at the press of a button. (They take about 24 hours to go from zero to full capacity. You just cannot reduce the output of a coal power station in the night in any meaningful way. Once the water is in the reservoir, you can use it to supply energy on demand within minutes).
I admire the ingenuity, but from an energy standpoint its terribly inefficient.
Its essentially using electricity to pump water through a turbine to generate electricity.
Shows you don't have a clue. The energy used is energy that would otherwise have been wasted. And without it, you would get brownouts at times of peak demand or waste even more energy.
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