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Apple's Data Centers to Be Powered by 100% Renewable Energy
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silly Greenpeace!!
Well, this is good news. saves the company money and allows the electricity that could have gone there back into the public demand so the local NC electric rates wouldn't go up because Apple is using so much more.
I think it would be great for any business/home over 5,000 SqFt to have solar panels on the roof to help generate the energy they use.
Kudos to Apple! Throw out some Windmills too or the water mills that use the mechanics of bobbing in ocean water to generate energy.
this is basically free power.
Well, this is good news. saves the company money and allows the electricity that could have gone there back into the public demand so the local NC electric rates wouldn't go up because Apple is using so much more.
I think it would be great for any business/home over 5,000 SqFt to have solar panels on the roof to help generate the energy they use.
Kudos to Apple! Throw out some Windmills too or the water mills that use the mechanics of bobbing in ocean water to generate energy.
this is basically free power.
Right, because research and development into cutting-edge tech is just going too far for Apple and other computer companies...I'm pretty sure Apple has a handle on their expenses and investments.
Yes, and he chose John Scully too. Means nothing.
I'm not saying Tim Cook isn't a good CEO. I'm just saying, it doesn't look like the company is very focused on what it should be doing. Jobs knew well, it's as important, even more important, to decide NOT to do things as it is to decide what to do. Is this contributing to the making of a great product? No. Is it a hassle and expensive? Yes.
Can't see the forest for the trees, wait what trees? All the trees have been cut down to make room for solar panels and wind mills
So, it looks like we have a ratio, at least in NC of 1/4 sq mile to 20MW peek generation capacity. At a 20% capacity factor (which I think is high) will generate 4MW. So for the steel mill that has a pair of 100MW arc furnaces, that is 200MW of power. So, that would be say 50 Apple sized solar panel farms. Or, about 12.5 square miles of solar panel farms to supply power to that one plant.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me, no?
I am all for re-using, using less, and such. But we need to take a step back and really look at the costs of solar and wind.
The square miles of real-estate required, the cost to human life and nature. The habitat's destroyed by running the power lines, the mining of the materials for the wind-mills and solar panels. And lest not forget the fact than many alternative energy sites are often many miles away from the users, so you have to add in all the power lines, materials for them and there own environmental cost.
It would be a whole more responsible of Apple to sit down with Obama and take him to task for not rescinding the ban on processing spent nuclear fuel to reduce/eliminate the problem created by the spent fuel sitting in holding ponds. And to put the wasted money into advanced fast cycle nuclear power plants, such as thorium reactors.
One, we can process existing spent fuel pellets into fuel for new reactors, which can, in the process of powering the nation, create significantly less radioactive "waste".
People are just scared sh*tless about nuclear energy of any sort, but probably don't realize their granite countertops are just as dangerous as a nuclear power plant.
Yeah, right. Apple is going to design and market the iPanel, solar panel for the masses, and people are going to line up outside the Apple store for blocks just to buy them.
Get a grip -- not any time soon. This isn't high tech. There is nothing cutting edge nor marketable about buying solar panels, then paying someone else to nail them onto your property so you can stare at them and feel good about yourself. This is just the company acting as its own consumer, buying a flashy toy that serves its customers and its shareholders in no substantive fashion whatsoever.
So you genuinely think Jobs had no input into this whatsoever? That a huge decision like this was formulated and accepted by the planning dept. within 7 months? Get real. I would wager heavily that Steve Jobs had some responsibility for this.
How doesn't it look the company isn't focussed on what it should be doing? How does this decision in the grand scheme of things affect Apple and their production of innovative products? It doesn't. Does using fossil fuels contribute to the creation of innovative products? No it doesn't. It doesn't matter how the board choose to power their datacenters.
Is it a hassle and an expense? I'm not going to discuss this as admittedly I do not know the whole arguments in favour and against solar power, aside from the generally accepted point that solar power works out cheaper over the long term. But using this logic? Is Apple's 'spaceship like' HQ they're proposing expensive? Yes it is. So then, does that mean they shouldn't build it? Of course it doesn't.
Fair enough about your Scully point, but I think IMO the scenario this time is completely different; post Next Jobs is/was much more mature than the Apple job at the time of appting. Scully. Jobs doesn't strike me the person to make the same mistake twice, he has appointed someone who is hugely respected in the tech field, even before he joined Apple. We're not talking a CEO who was a complete novice to a new industry like Scully was. There is a difference between someone who has been working under Jobs for around 10 years to someone jumping in who had only experienced selling beverages in a wholely capitalistic industry which has no thoughts on design and innovation.
My company has three major datacenters: Virginia, Colorado and Singapore. I have no idea what the calculations come out to be or if it would make financial sense for them to migrate to renewable energy. My point was that with $1M per/month at just ONE of the datacenters, the positive environmental impact that they could make is very significant. And no, I'm not a tree hugger and I do own stock with my company. If it makes absolutely no financial sense, then it probably isn't going to happen anyway.
"Corporate Social Responsibility" is not a trend. It is an important element of long term sustainability.
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Duke Energy also charges non-manufacturing commercial facilities a demand rate of $3.19 per month for every kW of peak demand (beyond the first 30 kW of peak demand) that the facility places on the grid. This is independent of the rate charged for the kWh actually delivered.
If we accept Apple's figures that their facility will draw approximately 20 MW at peak capacity (this value will vary somewhat over the course of a day), then with conventional electrical service they would be paying $63704.30 per month just for the service demand -- before they even start paying the per-kWh rate.
Apple claims that their solar plants, although rated for a peak production of 20 MW, are actually anticipated to produce 42 million kWh, per plant, per year. That means an average power output, computed over the course of a single day, of 4.8 MW per plant. If they use storage cells to even out the output, then that means their two solar facilities will be able to reduce their peak demand from 20 MW to 10.4 MW. In that case, they will enjoy savings of $30624.00 per month.
All this savings, before we even take into account the further savings they will enjoy on the per-kWh portion of their billing.
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To be clear, I have been very careful to make the correct distinctions between kW, MW, kWh, and MHh in all my above figures. I don't believe there are any ambiguities or errors.
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Judging from the amount of praise for the decision in this thread as well as the amount of negative votes you've accumulated....I would say it's YOU who is out of touch.
The point of this venture is pure PR, plain and simple. It's important to the general public to be green, therefore green companies look better and sell more. Not only is green about image, it really DOES save on energy costs, and down the road will pay for itself. If being green weren't so important for image....why is everyone doing it? And why is the public demanding more of it?
It's not ALL about money/profit...if you go about looking at the world in terms of dollar signs, you're bound for a very cold and sad life. Sure, you can afford the mortgage on your $500k McMansion in suburban hell with a neighbor 5 feet away on either side breathing down your neck, but you also spend your time being hateful and hated.
This project was first reported on last October 25. It already had been "quietly underway" for some unspecified period of time. I imagine that there had been at least a little planning before the bulldozers were brought in. (How long does it take to conceive of, get internal approval for, and design a project like this? At least a month, I'd imagine.
.) I therefore can reasonably conclude that Steve Jobs knew about it, and that it had his blessing.Since last October 5, we haven't gotten through a new Apple announcement without someone predicting that it's the beginning of the end for the company, and that Steve Jobs must be turning over in his grave. Of course, while he was alive, each new Apple announcement caused someone to say that Steve's ego had gotten the better of him, and that it was the beginning of the end for Apple.
I have a friend who is heavily invested in Apple stock. He says he'll start selling his shares when Apple starts closing rather than opening new stores, when people stop lining up for new product releases, when the demand for Apple products in huge new markets such as China and India has been satisfied, and when Apple starts losing market share. No company stays on top forever, but I don't see any evidence that Apple has peaked yet, or that henceforth they're not going to design any more great products. We still have the iTV ahead of us. Yeah, it might bomb, but based on Apple's track record over the past dozen years, that's not where I'd bet my money.
Perhaps on an average day. But on a bad day, nuclear power plants are much, much worse.
I'm pretty sure Apple could power the facility by burning $1 bills from their massive cash reserves and future profits and still come out ahead.
How are they destroying Apple? I think in this case, all they did was show their ignorance. Anyone could have read what Apple was up to; somehow Greenpeace missed it.
Though unconvinced by your knee-jerk reaction and subsequent argument against this technology, I do understand how painful it is for someone to let go of entrenched ideas about Apple and alternative energy. That said, this article clearly states that these new systems will provide 100% of the power to these data centers. That is power Apple won't have to buy from local utilities, and that is power that will ensure user's data isn't dependent on grid conditions in the Carolina's or wherever else.
I usually don't dive into fanboyism, but Apple is arguably one of, if not the most, focused tech companies right now. And you're suggesting they've frivolously invested money just for a flashy toy?
Now that you bring this up, why is Apple wasting money looking into and trying to improve working conditions at the Foxconn plant? Chinese workers are a renewable resource, and if the ones at Foxconn don't like it, I'm sure there are a million more who'd love to take their places. As an Apple shareholder, I'm incensed. Steve Jobs would never have caved in to all this human-rights nonsense.
Excellent point. If they break even in 10 or even 20 years, the money was basically spent on free PR.
Eventually solar panels will be cost effective. Building large scale renewable energy solutions like this one only speeds up that process.
Besides, there's probably bean counters paid a lot of money to make decisions like this who are much more educated that we -the rank and file posting on this forum.
Perhaps on an average day. But on a bad day, nuclear power plants are much, much worse.
It's like fear of flying: statistically, you're more likely to die in a car crash than in a plane crash -- but if you're actually in a crash, you're more likely to survive a car crash than a plane crash.
The beginning of the End?
Solar and wind are not reliable sources and must be augmented by reliable traditional sources, so it can't be 100% renewable. A 5MW fuel cell won't come anywhere near what's needed at night or on windless days.
Initial equipment costs and maintenance expenses are going to be catastrophic. We all know who's going to have to foot the bill for this, and it won't be Android or Microsoft users. They'll continue to provide products at far less cost using good old fashon and reliable coal and gas.
Solar and wind are not reliable sources and must be augmented by reliable traditional sources, so it can't be 100% renewable. A 5MW fuel cell won't come anywhere near what's needed at night or on windless days.
Initial equipment costs and maintenance expenses are going to be catastrophic. We all know who's going to have to foot the bill for this, and it won't be Android or Microsoft users. They'll continue to provide products at far less cost using good old fashon and reliable coal and gas.
As dangerous as normally functioning nuclear power plant, not quite as dangerous as the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
Yup, increasing wages across seas within subcontracted companies they don't even own, opening both secondary and third party auditing of conditions, lowering overtime hours of contractor's employees, extending thanksgiving and other paid holiday's off for Apple employees, free Circ Du Soleil tickets for employees, new charity matching options for employees, new campuses in texas adding almost 4000 new jobs and pumping over 300 million back into the local economy there... the list goes ON AND ON...
That's not even mentioning the improvements of countless people's daily lives that products themselves add...
So, because Jobs made a bad decision in choosing people at some point, all his people-choosing decisions mean nothing? Because Jobs made a bad product decision at some point (eg, the Cube), all his product decisions mean nothing?
If you want to say that Jobs made mistakes at some point, that is fine. If you pick one mistake and say because of this one should not attach any value to any of his decisions, you are using a straw argument because you have run out of real arguments.