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Apple Building Solar Farm at North Carolina Data Center

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Well, let's all kill ourselves and solve the carbon footprint then..
 
Don't solar panels need to be replaced ~every 20 years? Or do industrial ones last longer? Talk about being green...
 
I happen to think that whether humans are significantly contributing to climate change or not (I think they are), we rely far too heavily on fossil fuels, and the dangers of the nuclear industry make it unattractive, (even if it probably is a necessary evil) and so well worth minimising if possible. I've never really understood the argument that says if you don't believe in man contributing to climate change we should all just carry on wrecking the planet and fouling up the environment. It makes us parasitic when we should be symbiotic, and isn't sustainable.

Reliance on fossil fuels also holds us back as a species. We'll never get into space and explore the universe using gasoline. It's just that too many oil companies make big money that work on alternatives is stifled, and the negative effects are downplayed. Cigarettes used to be considered healthy, right?! Similar thing. In 100 years' time I think we'll look back and be disgusted we let things go on like they did for as long as they did. (come back and downrate me then if I'm wrong! ;) )

Regardless of any environmental arguments, even just from a pure financial point of view this is a great idea. They have so much money doing nothing, and this is something they can easily work out the rewards from the investment before spending a dime... the only real question they have to answer being 'is spending on solar panels and their maintenance less expenditure than buying the same amount of energy in from other sources?'. If it's the same or less, why wouldn't they?

The sun is firing free energy at the planet all day, every day. Those lucky enough (or successful enough) to be able to afford to capture that free energy are giving themselves an advantage.

Another point is diversification of power supply. If energy costs soar in the future, it would be wise to invest now in energy sources that free Apple from the control of others. I'm not saying this one plan will do that, but it's a start, and the lessons they learn from this experience can be applied in the future. If there was a sudden shortage of reliable electricity from the grid, that iCloud is going to suffer pretty badly, and considering how much Apple is putting at stake on it, one would think that keeping it all going was a very important thing.

Having Apple being free from control was a very Steve Jobs thing (still can't believe I'm using the past tense really... RIP dude). This is another example of that yearning to be self-reliant, and thinking ahead. I think it's a great idea.
 
pewra said:
Sell it back to the grid instead, then there's no loss, and the traditional power plants run at a lower capacity to compensate.
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It doesn't work that way. The traditional combustion power plant cannot be tuned in real-time to increase and reduce its output in response to actual demand. In order to operate at peak efficiency, all such traditional plants must operate at their original design capacity all the time, regardless of whether or not the power is actually being consumed.

Shut an individual plant off entirely? OK, provided you can give adequate advance warning before needing to shut it down or start it back up. (We're talking advance warning in the time frame of days, if not weeks.)
Run an individual plant at 75% of design capacity? Not so much.

So what do you do when the traditional plants, possibly supplemented by additional transient sources such as wind, solar, tidal, etc, produce a net excess of energy on the grid, that cannot be consumed in real-time by the actual demand on the grid?

One option is to allow that excess energy to dissipate away as heat. This is a complete waste, from which nobody derives any benefit at all.

Another very popular solution is to use it to pump a reservoir full of water, anticipating the need to drain the reservoir through a turbine at a later date when the combined efforts of traditional power plants and transient supplements are not adequate to meet the grid's demands.

Now, usually it doesn't make sense for small independent operators of transient power sources to operate such reservoir/turbine stations on their own. It is more efficient for those operators to simply push the power on to the grid, and leave the ultimate responsibility for storage/deployment of excess energy up to the authority that manages the overall grid, because they are the ones that are in a position to recognize the times of the day where they have an overall net excess of energy that needs to be dealt with.
 
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Tilpots said:
Excellent. Don't know the terrain there, but the NC mountains could also provide wind power. Smart move Apple.
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The area isn't prime for wind, plus here in NC, there are a lot of anti-wind people here. Most are crazy republicans who site birds getting killed by slow moving large fins. Likely the same people who shoot birds for fun. (obviously my angry opinion)
 
TMar said:
Waste of time and land...
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It's meant for show and PR. Let's find out how many diesel generators they have hidden in the basement.

It's like the solar panel on the roof of the Prius -- which powers only a vent fan. Thousands of power-hungry servers and tens of thousands of hard drives are not going to be powered by solar panels.
 
TMar said:
Inefficiently harnessing power from the sun at a premium infrastructure cost, yeah waste of time and money and real estate.



Umm, no. Their intentions are tax cuts and to wave a 'green' flag.
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And if they didn't do it, you haters would be here complaining that the data center is using more than Apple's share of fossil fuels.
 
There are trees on that plot before, now what will they actually gain by using a solar power plant, first they cut hundreds if not thousands of trees so a lot of carbon is released and those trees won't soak up any bad things anymore, and manufacturing those solar panels will cause even more carbon to be in the air.
So, it will take ages to recover that.
Its like biofuel, right now I am in Indonesia, millions of square miles of pristine forest are cut now to grow trees for biofuel and those trees grow mostly on peat ground, they drain that soil and billions of carbon are released, it takes hundreds of years for the biofuel to get even!!!!

Apple should have build it on land which had no trees on it.
 
koruki said:
I say they should reinvent geothermal. Giant solar panel at the top of windmills with rain connectors around the pole that direct water to turbines inside to generator hydro power. :cool:
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That would be kinda cool. I think Apple should do a combination wind mill, radiometer, and solar panels. Put solar panels on the black side of the blades and rain connectors. Cool stuff, IMO.
 
Watabou said:
You really are clueless aren't you? Why don't you stop criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind and actually read the facts yourself? I will not make this any clearer: Global warming is a FACT. There are actually scientific evidence laid out for us by scientists. It is your choice whether to continually deny the evidence, like Creationists do about evolution, or whether to accept the facts and move into the future.
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You are just putting religious-like faith behind "scientists" without using your own brain to draw a conclusion. It's just religious dogma that they are right...

The problems is this "scientific evidence" is a fraud. The people behind the movement (and Al Gore's powerpoint) specifically at East Anglia University have been discredited as frauds by their leaked emails, making up data and rigging equations to meet a political objective. Always follow the money and that leads us to carbon credit trading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climatic_Research_Unit_email_controversy

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...n-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

Any so-called "scientific evidence" that ignores THE SUN as a factor (one inconvenient truth is that ALL OF THE PLANETS are warming and there aren't any SUVs on Mars) and ignores that the vast majority of greenhouse gas is water vapor and methane (which can't be taxed therefore it is ignored) and way down the list is CO2 and way below that is man-made CO2 at something like .001 percent.

The Earth's climate is not static and never has been. The climate always changes, it heats up, it cools down. Evidence suggests we are actually entering another ice age (the growth in human civilization in the last 10,000 years can be linked to the end of the last ice age).

Most of man-made global warming is psuedo-science and one would do well to understand the money and power behind it, and to understand how grant money is allocated to researchers.

Further, Al Gore scolds us that "the debate is over". In science the debate is never over -- even something as seemingly immutable as Newton's laws of physics can be overturned by new facts. Saying "the debate is over" is not something a true scientist would do. It sounds no different than a creationist saying "God says so".

The biggest, and easiest, way to puncture this argument is simply this:

They say the environment is warming because of man made CO2 so we must reduce emissions and tax carbon.

If the environment were cooling would they encourage increased CO2 emissions to help warm the planet? OF COURSE NOT. End of fraud. They want to confiscate wealth by taxing energy and they need a reason to do it, a reason that makes people feel good because they're "making a difference".
 
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janstett said:
The problems is this "scientific evidence" is a fraud. The people behind the movement (and Al Gore's powerpoint) specifically at East Anglia University have been discredited as frauds by their leaked emails, making up data and rigging equations to meet a political objective. Always follow the money and that leads us to carbon credit trading.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...n-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

Any so-called "scientific evidence" that ignores THE SUN as a factor (one inconvenient truth is that ALL OF THE PLANETS are warming and there aren't any SUVs on Mars) and ignores that the vast majority of greenhouse gas is water vapor and methane (which can't be taxed therefore it is ignored) and way down the list is CO2 and way below that is man-made CO2 at something like .001 percent.

Most of man-made global warming is psuedo-science and one would do well to understand the money and power behind it, and to understand how grant money is allocated to researchers.
Click to expand...

Oh shut up. Nobody here is falling for your ****.
 
janstett said:
The problems is this "scientific evidence" is a fraud. The people behind the movement (and Al Gore's powerpoint) specifically at East Anglia University have been discredited as frauds by their leaked emails, making up data and rigging equations to meet a political objective. Always follow the money and that leads us to carbon credit trading.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...n-the-coffin-of-anthropogenic-global-warming/

Any so-called "scientific evidence" that ignores THE SUN as a factor (one inconvenient truth is that ALL OF THE PLANETS are warming and there aren't any SUVs on Mars) and ignores that the vast majority of greenhouse gas is water vapor and methane (which can't be taxed therefore it is ignored) and way down the list is CO2 and way below that is man-made CO2 at something like .001 percent.

Most of man-made global warming is psuedo-science and one would do well to understand the money and power behind it, and to understand how grant money is allocated to researchers.

Further, Al Gore scolds us that "the debate is over". In science the debate is never over -- even something as seemingly immutable as Newton's laws of physics can be overturned by new facts.
Click to expand...

Orly?

http://arstechnica.com/science/news...finally-convinced-earth-is-getting-warmer.ars

Thank you science.

p.s. if we were to follow the money, we wouldn't see attacks on the biggest and baddest industry of them all - oil.
 
Porco said:
I happen to think that whether humans are significantly contributing to climate change or not (I think they are), we rely far too heavily on fossil fuels, and the dangers of the nuclear industry make it unattractive, (even if it probably is a necessary evil) and so well worth minimising if possible. I've never really understood the argument that says if you don't believe in man contributing to climate change we should all just carry on wrecking the planet and fouling up the environment. It makes us parasitic when we should be symbiotic, and isn't sustainable.

Reliance on fossil fuels also holds us back as a species. We'll never get into space and explore the universe using gasoline. It's just that too many oil companies make big money that work on alternatives is stifled, and the negative effects are downplayed. Cigarettes used to be considered healthy, right?! Similar thing. In 100 years' time I think we'll look back and be disgusted we let things go on like they did for as long as they did. (come back and downrate me then if I'm wrong! ;) )

Regardless of any environmental arguments, even just from a pure financial point of view this is a great idea. They have so much money doing nothing, and this is something they can easily work out the rewards from the investment before spending a dime... the only real question they have to answer being 'is spending on solar panels and their maintenance less expenditure than buying the same amount of energy in from other sources?'. If it's the same or less, why wouldn't they?

The sun is firing free energy at the planet all day, every day. Those lucky enough (or successful enough) to be able to afford to capture that free energy are giving themselves an advantage.

Another point is diversification of power supply. If energy costs soar in the future, it would be wise to invest now in energy sources that free Apple from the control of others. I'm not saying this one plan will do that, but it's a start, and the lessons they learn from this experience can be applied in the future. If there was a sudden shortage of reliable electricity from the grid, that iCloud is going to suffer pretty badly, and considering how much Apple is putting at stake on it, one would think that keeping it all going was a very important thing.

Having Apple being free from control was a very Steve Jobs thing (still can't believe I'm using the past tense really... RIP dude). This is another example of that yearning to be self-reliant, and thinking ahead. I think it's a great idea.
Click to expand...


While I disagree with you about the cause of climate change, I really agree strongly with you on a lot of the points you raise in this post. We are way too reliant on all forms of fossil fuels, and nuclear power (and its implications for future generations) frankly scares me, and I agree that our reliance on these fuels is holding us back as a race.

Having said that, burning down a whole bunch of trees and tarnishing the soil (and the depletion of topsoil is probably a much greater environmental threat to us than this con being perpetrated by Gore et al), seems much less like a genuine effort to be "green" and much more like a token gesture to earn "green points". If you want to erect a bunch of solar panels, do it on the roof of a building, or buy a piece of industrial wasteland and convert that - don't destroy even more trees to earn a few carbon credits.
 
TMar said:
Doing this is a huge tax credit for them, that is the sole reason.

^yes.
Click to expand...

The federal tax credit for solar panels is called the Investment Tax Credit and it is worth 30% of the cost of construction. At that percentage, it cannot be the "sole reason". Since they've begun construction this year, they can qualify for a treasury grant in lieu of that tax credit. The grant is a check from treasury equal to about 30% of the cost of construction.

No matter which one of these supports Apple chooses, it is not the sole reason. It defrays some of the cost (which will be a couple of $100 million depending on the size of this solar facility). The reason Apple is doing this is (a) PR, (b) electricity cost certainty in the future (especially during the hottest part of the day, when Apple needs the most power and electricity is more expensive) and (c) insure consistent access to electricity (if Apple combines this with some smaller oil or gas based backup generators for night time).
 
Solar electricity will be to unreliable to use for all the power as no sun equals no power.
Click to expand...

Solar power isn't necessarily "sun power", it works in a light conditions. Obviously more effective in direct light, but even when its overcast it will generate power.

I'm sure Apple wouldn't even consider it if the figures showed it wasn't worth it.
 
This is just Apple putting in a fail safe for when Siri turns on mankind. Then we an always just black out the sun; where would the machines possibly find another power source? ;)
 
chemenski said:
Don't solar panels need to be replaced ~every 20 years? Or do industrial ones last longer? Talk about being green...
Click to expand...

Its not so much about the life expectancy, just that 20-year old panels are very much obsolete. Modern Photovoltaics are much more efficient than those produced 20 years ago!
 
lukarak said:
This is a marketing thing and nothing more. Solar power is clean, but the stuff you have to build to collect it is not. Just like batteries, it is extremely damaging on the environment. Plus you destroy large areas of vegetation, that produced oxygen and captured CO2. It would have been better if they planted a forest and invested a couple of their billions in a nuclear power plant, which is what humanity is going to have to rely on in the next few decades until we can achieve nuclear fusion.
Click to expand...

We already have a gigantic nuclear fusion reactor. Its energy is sent to us wirelessly, for free!! If we have the technology to use this energy, it seems silly not to do so.

Certainly, photovoltaic cells are not environmentally free to produce, but they are net energy producers many times over in their lifetimes. And you can build and install a heck of a lot of photovoltaic cells before you approach the environmental cost of building one nuclear plant.
 
Peace said:
Why all the hate ? There are solar farms all over Europe. And parts of America.
Click to expand...

For me it's the cutting down of trees and causing fires large enough that the neighbors are complaining about the smoke. Burning trees, well, removing trees, for a solar farm seems counter productive on some level. Couldn't Apple have installed panels on the roof of this massive building and put the panels on a n angle to be able to install more on it.

Slash and burn is what ticks me off about so many projects. Somehow we need to balance respect for the environment with our quest for energy self sufficiency.

But in the end, who ever called Apple a 'green company'. Look at their history. I don't think they have earned the green label until recently and I'm sure that if you look closely, the green tint wears off quickly.

Sure, they are better than some, but there is room for improvement.

Let's see how they pull off this 'solar farm' and if they can make it and not be creating an eye sore and technical wasteland.
 
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