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Apple recently struck a deal with Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology, known as the world's largest wind turbine maker, which will bring clean energy into the production processes and manufacturing plants of Apple's partner facilities in China (via South China Morning Post).

Specifically, Goldwind's wholly-owned subsidiary Beijing Tianrun New Energy Investment will transfer a 30 percent stake each in four project companies to Apple. The subsidiary of Goldwind is focused on the construction and operation of wind power farms and will likely assist Apple in providing clean energy to its many iPhone manufacturing facilities in the region, potentially including well-known assemblers Foxconn and Pegatron.

applewindpower.png
"Apple is committed to powering all of its facilities around the world with 100 per cent renewable energy, and is now working with its suppliers to power Apple's product manufacturing with renewable energy," Goldwind said.
The details of exactly which supplier, and how much money Apple will spend on the project, were left undisclosed. In the filing sent to the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday by Goldwind, which revealed its partnership with Apple, it was also mentioned that each of the projects will be "cooperative joint ventures" that won't be consolidated solely in Goldwind's financial statements. Both Goldwind and Apple will have more of an equal presence, "since important matters will require unanimous approval by their directors."

Apple has always been a proponent of clean energy and general environmental friendliness, this year joining global renewable energy initiative RE100 and replacing its retail stores' plastic bags with paper bags made from 80 percent recycled materials. The cooperation with Goldwind is a new step in Apple's attempts to introduce clean energy into the manufacturing processes of its supplier partners, last year announcing the installation of 200 megawatts of solar projects in the northern, eastern and southern regions of China, as well as encouraging partners like Foxconn to be more energy efficient.

Article Link: Apple Enters Agreement With World's Largest Wind Turbine Maker for Clean Energy Projects
 

Zirel

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Jul 24, 2015
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Apple shouldn't invest like this in China, unless they are paying this with sub-1% interest rates.

The Chinese economy is bad, and Donal Trump promises to anger Beijing a lot with manufacturing and the Chinese already promised to take revenge on Apple.
[doublepost=1481202583][/doublepost]
LOL. Yeah right. Thats why they make disposable non upgradable non repairable computers. Your MacBooks ssd fails? Sorry. Throw it away. Need more RAM? Sorry. Buy another brand new machine.

Personal Computers are always throw away items.

By the time a SSD fails, your computer is already obsolete.
 

2457282

Suspended
Dec 6, 2012
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I think it is great that Apple continues to lead in zero energy data centers and now maybe even helping out suppliers. I just wonder how sustainable this all is. The amount of solar and wind farms that fuel Apple alone is mammoth. Trying to scale that up to cities and countries seems unattainable. I have seen technologie write ups that should double the energy capture of solar cells, but even that may not be enough. Although I applaud Apple for its commitment, we do need to look at both the power consumption side efficiencies and look for new ways to harness energies to feed the growing need. No answers here, just an awareness that the efforts being made are not sufficiently scalable to address the problem long term.
 
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EdT

macrumors 68020
Mar 11, 2007
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I have been critical of Apple in Apple's decisions in a lot of threads, but this news has nothing to do with audio jacks or wireless routers or laptops or iMacs or Mac Pros, it has to do with providing power to existing plants, which even if Apple is going to pull all production back to the US, would still be necessary for Apple to make product for the next 2-3 ( a very optimistic minimum) years while the US production plants are being built. I view this as a positive decision.
 

John.B

macrumors 601
Jan 15, 2008
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Holocene Epoch
Google made a big announcement recently about another bait-and-switch power arrangement where they contract to buy wind generation "offsets". However, both of the Google datacenters in this area are actually hardwired to coal-burning power plants (by far the largest source of mercury pollution in the environment).

So is this new Apple deal a similar bait-and-switch PR campaign? Or will this new wind generation actually be the power source for Apple and Apple-affiliated facilities (i.e. their North Carolina facility)?
 
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bpcookson

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Apr 6, 2012
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I love reading clean energy news for any company, but especially for Apple. Call me crazy, but I'd love to see them do increasingly more in this sector. Like what if they became a real player? Competed with the likes of SolarCity? Developed commercial grade systems for clean energy?

I realize this is entirely incongruent with their consumer hardware/software business but it just feels like they'd be a great company to help drive some meaningful development in the clean energy industry.
 
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Michaelgtrusa

macrumors 604
Oct 13, 2008
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The worlds most evil and murderous western created government runs away with American and western technology. Apple doesn't care
 

ArtOfWarfare

macrumors G3
Nov 26, 2007
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I haven't really following wind energy all that much.

I know that solar cell prices are being cut in half every 2 years and that within ~10 years they should be approximately free.

Is wind energy prices similarly falling? It seems like they involve a lot less technology and a lot more labor, so there's a lot less cost savings to be had by automating production of components.
 

bommai

macrumors 6502a
May 23, 2003
743
417
Melbourne, FL
My 2007 iMac upgraded with 500GB SSD and 6 GB RAM would disagree with you.

Apple shouldn't invest like this in China, unless they are paying this with sub-1% interest rates.

The Chinese economy is bad, and Donal Trump promises to anger Beijing a lot with manufacturing and the Chinese already promised to take revenge on Apple.
[doublepost=1481202583][/doublepost]

Personal Computers are always throw away items.

By the time a SSD fails, your computer is already obsolete.
My all
 

RichTeer

macrumors member
Aug 13, 2014
93
188
Kelowna, BC, Canada
LOL. Yeah right. Thats why they make disposable non upgradable non repairable computers. Your MacBooks ssd fails? Sorry. Throw it away. Need more RAM? Sorry. Buy another brand new machine.

No, you take it to a recycling depot. So yeah, they're disposable in a sense, but not in an environmentally unfriendly manner. Unless, of course, the end user can't be bothered to take it to a recycling depot (opting to just chuck it in the garbage instead), in which you're right--but Apple isn't at fault.
[doublepost=1481209492][/doublepost]
I love reading clean energy news for any company, but especially for Apple. Call me crazy, but I'd love to see them do increasingly more in this sector. Like what if they became a real player? Competed with the likes of SolarCity? Developed commercial grade systems for clean energy?

I realize this is entirely incongruent with their consumer hardware/software business but it just feels like they'd be a great company to help drive some meaningful development in the clean energy industry.

ISTR reading something about an entity called Apple Energy recently?
 

appleofmy"i"

macrumors regular
Feb 2, 2010
174
57
My god I've never seen more uninformed comments. Macrumors you need to do something about the garbage discourse on here anymore.
 

manu chao

macrumors 604
Jul 30, 2003
7,219
3,031
I think it is great that Apple continues to lead in zero energy data centers and now maybe even helping out suppliers. I just wonder how sustainable this all is. The amount of solar and wind farms that fuel Apple alone is mammoth. Trying to scale that up to cities and countries seems unattainable.
Scaling to 100% will be difficult but in Germany, for example, in 2015 35% of public net power supply came from renewable sources. Of that 65% came from wind and solar, 24% from biomass and 11% from hydropower. That former number is set to rise to 50% in 2030. And Germany isn't a particularly sunny country, though it has great wind power potential along its coast (both in-land as well as out on the sea). On a sunny and windy day last May for a short time, 83% of all electricity consumption in Germany was supplied by renewable energy sources.

A more coastal country like Denmark, on windy days, produces more electricity through wind power than it consumes (it hit a record of 140% for a short time. Overall 42% of electricity consumption in Denmark in 2015 was supplied by wind power (on a net basis), a value that was only 22% in 2010.
 
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Cineplex

macrumors 6502a
Jan 1, 2016
741
2,012
I think it is great that Apple continues to lead in zero energy data centers and now maybe even helping out suppliers. I just wonder how sustainable this all is. The amount of solar and wind farms that fuel Apple alone is mammoth. Trying to scale that up to cities and countries seems unattainable. I have seen technologie write ups that should double the energy capture of solar cells, but even that may not be enough. Although I applaud Apple for its commitment, we do need to look at both the power consumption side efficiencies and look for new ways to harness energies to feed the growing need. No answers here, just an awareness that the efforts being made are not sufficiently scalable to address the problem long term.

Problem is that Apple's data centers are actually using non-green energy. They connect to the grid like everyone else. A data center could not run on wind and solar energy only, just not possible. The solar is sold to the electric company. Saying their centers run on green energy is quite the lie.
 

John.B

macrumors 601
Jan 15, 2008
4,192
705
Holocene Epoch
Is wind energy prices similarly falling? It seems like they involve a lot less technology and a lot more labor, so there's a lot less cost savings to be had by automating production of components.

Wind generation assets in the US of A are currently "cheap" due to federal tax breaks that subsidize their cost and deployment.

I have no idea how that works in the PRC.
 

Jakexb

macrumors 6502a
Mar 18, 2014
798
1,106
LOL. Yeah right. Thats why they make disposable non upgradable non repairable computers. Your MacBooks ssd fails? Sorry. Throw it away. Need more RAM? Sorry. Buy another brand new machine.

First, don't throw it away, obviously. Macs have the highest resale value of any brand and last a very long time. The best way to be environmentally friendly is to reuse something for longer. Part of that is their construction techniques.

Second, SO FEW people have ever upgraded anything anywhere on any computer. I would be shocked if the number was even 10%. Apple can make a smaller, more durable device with less materials, costing less resources to ship and manufacture, it's definitely a tradeoff, but you can see why that tradeoff probably results in a net environmental benefit.
 
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mw360

macrumors 68020
Aug 15, 2010
2,032
2,395
Google made a big announcement recently about another bait-and-switch power arrangement where they contract to buy wind generation "offsets". However, both of the Google datacenters in this area are actually hardwired to coal-burning power plants (by far the largest source of mercury pollution in the environment).

So is this new Apple deal a similar bait-and-switch PR campaign? Or will this new wind generation actually be the power source for Apple and Apple-affiliated facilities (i.e. their North Carolina facility)?

Nothing wrong with using offsets at all. The alternative--making a completely isolated green-only power grid--would be a colossal waste of money, just for the sake of satisfying some cynics over a point of principle. Regardless of whether Google physically uses coal, gas, nuclear or whatever, they paid the premium for the renewable energy to go into the grid, so somebody, somewhere is using all that clean energy instead of coal. Why does it matter who used it? The benefit to the environment is exactly the same.
 

macs4nw

macrumors 601
I love reading clean energy news for any company, but especially for Apple. Call me crazy, but I'd love to see them do increasingly more in this sector. Like what if they became a real player? Competed with the likes of SolarCity? Developed commercial grade systems for clean energy?

I realize this is entirely incongruent with their consumer hardware/software business but it just feels like they'd be a great company to help drive some meaningful development in the clean energy industry.
A great opportunity for Apple considering that,

a) this fits right in with their corporate vision of sustainability and recycling, while
b) there's enormous, make that huge, potential for world-wide growth in that industry, and even more importantly,
c) at a time of potential stagnation with mature existing product lines, a welcome diversification that could pay relatively speedy dividends for the shareholders. (No lengthy, endless and mostly unfruitful negotiations with content creators/distributors for their TV ambitions, and no huge and massively expensive learning curve as almost certainly required for the now questionable 'project Titan').

If no one else, Apple has the resources to do this right and at mega-scale.

Next up: "Samsung partners with competing wind turbine maker for clean-energy projects".....
 
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Porco

macrumors 68040
Mar 28, 2005
3,314
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Renewable and sustainable energy is only going become more and more important as well as more and more efficient, and I'm glad Apple appears to recognise this.

And people can moan about their products being increasingly disposable - I know I do, for several reasons - but seriously, they are a company making products and devices... and it's better that they are made of highly recyclable materials for when they do eventually hit the (metaphoric or literal) scrapheap than be upgradable for another ... what... decade(?) and then hit the scrapheap, full of nasty junk. The planet doesn't care about another decade you got out of your Macbook. It cares (figuratively) more about polluting the air and water and ground, and about burning fossil fuels and altering the climate and causing more extreme weather.

I posted in another thread about how ludicrous I feel it is that in almost 2017 data roaming charges are still a thing - but even more ludicrous is how little energy we capture that is being given away for free, every single day. Put it this way, there are billions upon billions of dollars worth of energy being unutilised and ignored because we haven't had the will to tackle the eminently solvable problem of efficient capture. Even if you are in the camp of denying climate change, or humans being a significant cause in the direction of climate change in the last 100 years or so, why let all that lovely free energy from the wind, the sun, the moon, the earth itself go to waste? It's just silly.

TL;DR - Good for Apple, more please.
 
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