Now they are trying to be their own utility company too? Dumb. They should leave that to the utility company.
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Apple Touts Plans for Massive Solar Farm and Fuel Cell Facilities at North Carolina Data Center
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Every company in the world with a datacenter either acts as their own utility or at least makes contingency plans for it. So why wouldn't Apple? Fuel cells are an environmentally friendly and efficient way to build self-contained power that would be unaffected by the grid. Some banks have been using similar technology for decades.
You overestimate the destructive potential of an aircraft. They aren't that heavy, or strong. I should know, I'm an Aeronautical Engineer. Also, nuclear reactors have multiple layers of shielding, concrete, steel, etc. that even a freaking nuclear bomb would be hard-pressed to breach. You know, because that's how they're DESIGNED.
No-one can live in Chernobyl for maybe a hundred years. People will likely be living back near fukushima in 10 years or so. People are obviously happily living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after they were irradiated. In all cases, far short of your 20,000 years.
No present energy source is without pollution, and to suggest otherwise portrays ignorance. The only completely clean, economically viable replacement to fossil fuels is nuclear fusion, and that won't be ready for a good 30 years or so.
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If you had a brain, you would have shifted your eyes one inch to the left of my posts, where my location is clear for all to see.
If they are really saving money by doing this, why not?
If Germany is any example to go by, solar energy won't be helping them out a whole lot. South Carolina will have better success (but certainly not Washington state), but in any case, it won't be adding much in the way of reliability to their data center power supply.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,809439,00.html
Fuel cells are an interesting technology. My understanding though is that one of the benefits is being able to use waste heat to heat buildings. But data centers don't need much in the way of heat. To the contrary, they need air conditioning. So how this figures in in terms of cost is a bit of an unknown to me.
I worry though that it will just be a feel-good waste of money, just like most such projects.
Immediately ceasing fossil fuel consumption would be detrimental to anyone in an extreme climate. Solar, wind, hydro, pedal power - whatever you want to call it; will not be able to accommodate the energy and heating demands of, for example, any country that experiences sub zero celcius average temperatures during the winter months.
I do agree that solar can work well at an individual residence level to offset day-to-day consumption. However, stepping up to an industrial/manufacturing level + transportation is where renewables simply fall short with our current technology.
Shutting out fossil fuels is simply not an option because the modern world is too reliant on them to function.
The above graph shows a historic and projected world energy demand in billion barrels of oil equivalent. Note the current renewables (yellow to gold) equivalent and compare that to the fossil fuel contribution to the total. A vast difference, would you agree?
Back to Australia as an example. In 2008-2009, if Australia were to switch off all of its fossil fuel based power stations, it would lose approximately 92.3% of its total electricity generation.
How would the country be able to rely on renewable energy sources when there is next to no infrastructure in place to support it?
Yes, nuclear and fossil fuels are finite resources. However, I think the hype surrounding the decrease in production of oil is exaggerated. The same goes for nuclear.
The cost of electricity generation plays a massive part in this also. Electricity from coal costs about 4-5 cents/KWhr. Where as solar is sitting at about 20 cents/KWhr
Yet a rush of water was enough to cause meltdowns recently. Nice one mate
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Yeh well I would have assumed every Australian new the facts of Australia. Obviously I was wrong.
No. An earthquake bending the ground caused the damage. And a few hundred million tonnes of water probably didn't help.
A couple of hundred tonnes of thin metal plane doesn't really compete. Especially when it's going to blow itself apart on impact.
Whatever. I assumed that other Australians wouldn't buy into propaganda, and realise that popular opinion rarely has any basis in fact.
Then again, people like Gina Rinehart and Andrew Bolt continue to sway the public with their well-funded BS campaigns.
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Please read the National Geographic article I linked to.
Yes, renewables could accommodate all the energy demands -- the issues are transmission and storage.
Bunkum.
Again, actual studies (rather than baseless assertions) show that renewables could provide all the energy we need.
Yes, there's a vast difference. So what?
That's simply a projection based on current estimates and trajectories.
The whole point would be to change the trajectory.
An asinine strawman argument.
Why would the country cut off existing energy sources without building up infrastructure to replace it?
Again, so what?
Why invest in temporary technologies when available technologies can provide a solution right now?
A little more about Australia:
Australia has an estimated 300 MW of installed photovoltaic (PV) power (September 2010),[1] contributing an estimated 0.1 to 0.2% of total electricity production (as of July 2009) despite the hot and sunny climate that would make it ideal for utilisation.
Here are a few more basics.
And here's what the Australian government has to say:
Australia receives an average of 58 million PJ of solar radiation per year, approximately 10 000 times larger than its total energy consumption.
A little basic mathematics:
Australia is, as I'm sure you know, occupies about 3 million square miles.
Thus an area of about 300 square miles receives as much solar energy as is required by the entire country. An area about the size of Canberra...
(To preempt: of course, you wouldn't just have a 300 square mile array, and there are the issues of transmission and storage. But simply covering every roof and car park in the country with photovoltaics would have a major impact. I can't find the article, but I believe I saw recently a report that California could generate 51% of its electricity on rooftops.)
The cost of fossil fuels is unlikely to do anything other than increase over the medium-long term. The cost of solar an other renewable technologies is decreasing. Significant purchases of the latter technologies is likely to drive the costs down further.
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Fuel cell power buys a company more than just green energy, it buys them energy independence from the grid. That's why banks saw the value of it long before the costs started coming down.
FWIW, our own data center recycles the heat generated by server hardware to help heat the rest of the facility, not all that different from heat pumps used in residential installations.
Considering that hydrogen fuel cells run on hydrogen (surprise, surprise) I don't think you could really call them all that green, as hydrogen is obtained from fossil fuels, and the reaction used to obtain it results in large amounts of carbon monoxide.
Unless Apple are using the solar panels to crack water into hydrogen, which can then be stored for a sunless blackout. But due to the inefficiency of the process, it would be far better just to use the solar panels to power Apple HQ and dump any extra power into the state grid.
So yeah, it's just about Apple being power insured, not about being environmentally friendly.
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and tony abbot who does not give any ideas just blocks everything is better? or even worse Alan Jones.
They're going to need a LOT of solar panels to make up for all the planned obsolescence they've got going on with their current 3 year dump support cycle for iOS and 4 year for Macs.
Such a simplistic view doesn't get anyone anywhere and to think that Apple hasn't done its homework is also silly.
You may or may not know that a lot of generation in the eastern US is from coal. Obviously, a very dirty source. By using natural gas which is very, very plentiful in the US due to increased exploration, drilling and fracking to power its fuel cells, Apple is able to substantially reduce its carbon footprint.
You also need to remember that the grid in the NE of the US is heavily used and due to adverse weather can be unpredictable during summers or extreme storms. Nobody would plan a data center without some kind of back up plan. I don't know why that's so hard for people to understand.
Conveniently ignoring the fact that the primary source of mercury in the environment today comes from burning coal? That's where the power on that part of the east coast would otherwise be sourced. Or don't you believe lowering a companies carbon footprint makes them green?
You're seem so inclined to hold everyone to a utopian ideal that you ignore any efforts that make actual progress in the real-world.
Sorry, many here were talking as if the Solar Panels were doing everything. They're not (as you noted).
I heard it on the news last week. But what I've found online;
http://dailyreckoning.com/oil-shale-reserves/
1.5Trillion Barrels. The US uses ~15-20M bbl per day. So I was a little over ... it's more like 250 years.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/03/04/news/economy/oil_shale_bakken/index.htm
here's an article about the Bakken find in ND.
It is actually being drilled right now. It's just taken awhile to get it all out. Thier are also many roadblocks to getting that oil. And the price needs to be closer to $70+/bbl (IIRC) to be a viable source of oil.
The US actually does have oil to feed itself. It's just cheeper to get it from somewhere else right now.
Finally, many of the easy to reach oil fields have low yeild crude. Or, you don't get a lot of out of it. The oil in the ME is much better quaility and per barrell, you get more products out of it than what's easy to drill for here in the US.
My claim is not outrageous. If the people in this country would understand, and get behind clean energy production (which can be done with oil and NG) and stop listening to the talking heads, whom almost ALWAYS have a vested interest in another outcome (and the $$ to line their pockets), we'd be way far ahead of the game right now.
Unfortunately, we elect idiots.
Why the attack? I was more or less agreeing with you that it's more about power redundancy than the environment. And as it's a backup, backup supply, what's the harm in that?
But, if you're going to be like that...
Mercury is not a greenhouse gas. Carbon monoxide produced in the creation of hydrogen is a DIRECT poison, far worse than CO2. So you've just replaced mercury with a different poison.
Please describe the method by which creating hydrogen from natural gas, and then using it to power a fuel cell is any more environmentally friendly than just burning the natural gas to begin with. There are obviously benefits to Apple, else they wouldn't use a fuel cell. But I expect they are all due to image and convenience rather than the environment.
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Erm, yes???
Although no-one is as bad as Bolt.
Nope, it wasn't intended as an attack, more of a parry, though as I look back it sure reads like one. Mea culpa!
I was (rather ineptly) trying to point out that coal emissions contain worse than just greenhouse gases.
Apropos of nothing: When Google was making noise about their green energy initiative, they built new data centers that used coal-based power with redundant energy supplied from adjacent grids also using coal-based power. Their "green power" was based solely on buying "green credits" from windfarms, which seemed more like a PR stunt than anything else.
I agree this is all about image as much as anything, and that's not restricted to Apple.
The claim that oil and NG represent clean energy is outrageous.
Please explain how kerogen can be extracted and transformed into usable petroleum products without environmental impact.
The assertion that proponents of renewable energy have a vested interest, looking to line their pockets, is simply bizarre. The majority of those I'm aware of (Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, and so on) are interested in conservation and limiting pollution. The extent of any financial interest is typically at the level of seeking economic stability, at whatever level, rather than "personal" gain.
In contrast, proponents of fossil fuels typically do have a significant financial interest, with considerable funds going into lobbying.
Apropos of financial interests, the question still remains, why would the country invest in a limited term "solution" to a problem with significant attendant risks (environmental damage etc.) instead of an "indefinite" term solution that won't leave ultimate resolution to future generations.
well crap, I had a reply all typed out and the system fubar'd me.
To summarize,
Apple, on their own, changed the world communications and cell phone market. No gov. mandate, no gov. subsidies, no gov. regulations. They did it by themselves. Get the gov. out of the renewable energy business and you'll see a lot more progress.
Regarding "clean" renewable energy; Solar panels require oil to produce and cannot be fully recycled, wind farms in west Texas are currently idle, and rusting in need of repair but b/c the gov. hand outs ran out the repairs are not being made (can't repair them and make any money - so it's written off). And Al Gore has suckered mroe money out of fools and idiots than PT Barnum could have dreamed of. Don't forget Solyndra, or any of the many companies that are now bankrupted, flushing our tax dollars.
And educate yourself. NG is one of the cleanest sources of energy in the country. It can be extracted with out damaging the environment - unless you mean untouched - if that's the case then enjoy the darkness b/c energy with out destruction is impossible.
To summarize, it seems like the epitome of irony that in a previous message you called on others to stop listening to the talking heads when clearly you're simply regurgitating the misinformation you've heard from others. I can almost hear Bill O'Reilly cackling above the frothing. Given this, it really is barely worth responding, but for the sake of it, probably for the last time...
It's not clear how government is relevant to the current discussion.
First, governments can play a role in fostering new technologies. I suspect that, contrary to your assertion, if the government stepped up and said it would actually pay, say, $10/kWh for electricity produced from renewable sources, you'd see an awful lot of progress pretty sharply.
Personally I'd rather see some of the massive subsidies currently given to, say, the oil industry withdrawn, and additional taxes imposed for the environmental impact (health etc.). That would level the playing field somewhat...
And?
What relevance does this have to the utility or otherwise of renewable energy? Systems and installations can be badly managed. On the other hand, Germany, Spain, and the UK in particular are able to generate large and increasing amounts of electricity from wind.
Gosh, Bill is in full flow; or is it Rush?
Again, I'm not sure what Al Gore has to do with it. Solyndra certainly was unfortunate; in part, however, its downfall is likely to have been because of competition from Chinese companies whose government subsidize its solar companies by a factor of 20 more than the US. What was that about governments getting out of the way?
But how about comparing the $535 million lost to Solyndra with the $4 billion in tax breaks the oil companies get?
Or explaining how this has anything to do with the viability or otherwise of renewable energy?
Certainly producing energy is likely always to have some environmental impact, however:
: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=solar-cells-prove-cleaner-way-to-produce-power, and by way of contrast: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=drill-for-natural-gas-pollute-water.
Almost all solar systems are grid-tied (no batteries).
The inverter that ties the panels to the grid shuts down if utility power goes out of spec (blackout or brownout.)
Solar installs are attractive to companies because of the tax advantages.
Not only do they receive direct subsidies (like homeowners), but companies can also depreciate the install (often on an accelerated schedule).
That's the case with the fuel cell install as well.
So it is primarily the tax advantages that drive the installation of both of the above.
Although, the fuel cells would give an advantage in power failures (no issues with natural gas delivery here in NC due to weather)
The inverter that ties the panels to the grid shuts down if utility power goes out of spec (blackout or brownout.)
Solar installs are attractive to companies because of the tax advantages.
Not only do they receive direct subsidies (like homeowners), but companies can also depreciate the install (often on an accelerated schedule).
That's the case with the fuel cell install as well.
So it is primarily the tax advantages that drive the installation of both of the above.
Although, the fuel cells would give an advantage in power failures (no issues with natural gas delivery here in NC due to weather)
I'd like to see a cost comparison of fuel cells to backup diesel generators. I'm leaning towards a bet that the diesel backup generators (which shouldn't be used that often anyhow) are more cost efficient.
As for everyday electricity generation, I'd place my bet that combined-cycle conventional power generation is more cost efficient than either fuel cell or solar. I think there may be cases where fuel cell energy can compare favorably in efficiency to combined-cycle generation by utilities, but according to my understanding, this would only be the case where heat generated from on-site fuel cell generation can be used to heat buildings. For a data center in South Carolina, I wouldn't think they would have much use at all for heat, since the computers generate so much heat and the waste heat from the computers themselves can be used to heat the building -- they will probably need more cooling than heat if they need heat at all in a state such as South Carolina.
Worrisome that the media reports have produced no statistics at all on the cost of this probable boondoggle.
Solar power is not reliable enough to power an ordinary house, much less a data center. A power outage occurring during a cloudy day, a rainstorm, or *gasp* at night, renders solar panels virtually or completely ineffective at mitigating the effects of a power outage.
I am a shareholder of Apple. Stupid management decisions wasting money (if that indeed is what is happening here) have consequences. I wouldn't be interested in management that wants to run a beauty pageant.
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Then you must be livid about the "space ship campus" plans for Cupertino.
Not just a beauty pageant, but a monument to a dead CEO's ego.