Greenpeace Takes on Apple and Other Tech Companies over Coal-Powered Data Centers

[8281]

I just had some whale "bacon" in Japan a couple weeks ago. Mmmm. Tasty.

One wonders if these aging hippies at greenpeace have thought about the societal impact of cloud computing in terms of the reduced need for commuting and transport of surface mail and transport and production of physical media for ordinary business needs.

One suspects a significant impact, but that's too much for these micro brains to handle methinks.

Yeah, because the people who don't agree with polluting the environment are the crazy ones...Don't you find it at least a little backwards that we are powering amazing devices with 150 year old technology? You would think people who love power-efficient computers (Apple computers) would also care about powering their entire ecosystem sustainably. Will this happen over night? Obviously not, and most environmentalists don't expect that to happen, but these same environmentalists (which include highly-educated Biologists, Physicists, Oceanographers, etc) have been trying to help the public understand pollution for nearly 40 years. These "micro-brained" people are pushing the boundaries and helping us think differently about how we interact with the environment. Isn't that what Apple is all about, thinking differently and pushing the envelope?

Now if the public could get over its (at times) irrational fear of nuclear energy and realize just how harmful coal (the mining process, the ash, and the emissions) really is, and if we could stop denouncing environmentalists as dirty hippies because they don't believe patriotism is correlated with a love of oil, parking lots, and highways, then we might have a rational discussion.

P.S. That whale you ate probably contained mercury, a byproduct of burning coal.

 

[EwanMcTeagle]

I'm not an expert, but I think it would better to be... rational about.
I'm all for saving energy and resources where it's possible. But maybe it would be better to popularize "green energy" by developing it to the point where it's truly competitive instead of wasting money on it through state funded subventions and restrictions on "traditional" sources and means of energy. As far as I know there weren't any subventions for gasoline and diesel engines with restrictions on steam engines - the better idea simply won.
Because it's all fine when wealthy West decides it now has a conscience and it's immoral to use oil, so the world should switch to "green". But what about all those developing countries, who joined the race at a later stage?
And the there's yet another side to the coin: EU, for example, can suppress and limit their economy with "pro-green" law all they want, but in the end it will only make their economy less competitive, because China or India and won't join the "green race" either way and regular Europeans will be the ones who end up losing most - paying more for gas ergo for transportation of any goods ergo paying more for foods and other products and losing jobs, because Chinese will do their jobs, only cheaper...

 

[jomuyo]

Facebook seems to be trying new things to help with cooling:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2395378,00.asp


Seems smart to me. But sure, let's just all complain about how it's impossible and no one could ever be expected to do better than what we currently have. If everyone was like the posters here I'm sure Facebook would never have thought to even try stuff like that.

Well locating a data center in Sweden would be great for Apple's European customers, but probably not a smart idea for Apple's US customers. Oh and according to the same article, Facebook is also building a data center in North Carolina as well. Did you even read the entire article that you posted?

 

[vojnik]

this is one of the funniest things i have read in some time, like all the major polluters are shut down so this is the next step? Maybe is greener to keep stuff on paper or use +++ hard drives which majority of the population don't recycle.

 

[Small White Car]

Facebook is also building a data center in North Carolina as well. Did you even read the entire article that you posted?

You act like that's a 'gotcha.' How does that fact have anything to do with what I said?

I said Facebook was building a datacenter in a colder environment. They are. Does the NC center somehow cause the other one to not exist or something?

 

[ImageWrangler]

Why doesn't Greenpeace go after, I don't know, every home owner in every state. After all, all the home owners are also using coal and nuclear and other polluting power sources.

Oh wait, is this for attention then Greenpeace? Right well carry on... asshats.

PS I'm for a greener planet but c'mon, they be trollin'

 

[xnu]

Wow step back a second and think about the big picture. Cloud technologies provide efficiencies in paper consumption, traveling for employees, collaboration, productivity and so much more. The datacenter is certified as a LEED Platinum building no easy task I assure, the cost alone to achieve that is admirable. Solar and Fuel Cell, and Greenpeace comes up with this?

Congratz for the creative thinking award, somehow I feel Greenpeace's need to have Apple in a press release is the driving factor. They should just print t-shirts that say "we hate coal" and be done with it, that would have more value then this nonsense. Lets boycott technology, that should teach those greedy energy producers, then we can all drive to work and use our typewriters and use snail mail to transmit all of documents.

 

[57004]

Odd that no one is harnessing river power for datacenters. Most major cities have some major river flowing through them. Seems they could turn turbines and produce enough energy. Could also probably use the cooler river water as some sort of chiller for cooling needs.

There's more than water in a river... I'm not sure fish would appreciate a trip through these turbines of yours Unless they start to sell fish fillets at the same time

 

[downpour]

Surely Apple's iCloud reduces global power usage massively, by taking away some of the need for power hungry PC's and hard drives to store and transfer your photos, music, etc.

Thank's to Apple, millions of people are moving over to lower power portable devices, instead of wasteful towers and laptops that they didn't really need.

Apple just seem to be an easy target to attack, for groups like Greenpeace, who haven't really thought things through, but just want publicity.

If they want to save the environment, there are much, much worse offenders out there, who they should be targeting instead.

The energy efficiency of a location for a datacenter isn't the 'only' factor that Apple would have looked at when deciding where to put it. Presumably, it would also need to be somewhere it's employees could travel to?

I think Apple have put more than enough effort into helping the environment and are leagues ahead of most other companies. Attacking them over this issue is just stupid and puts other companies off doing similar work.

 

[Moriquendi]

Nuclear energy is probably one of the best invention ever: effective and clean, and these ignorant ecologists who knows nothing about science fight against it.
Phi...go and save whales.

 

[PeterQVenkman]

You act like that's a 'gotcha.' How does that fact have anything to do with what I said?

I said Facebook was building a datacenter in a colder environment. They are. Does the NC center somehow cause the other one to not exist or something?

By forum logic, the NC center causes a black hole to swallow the other data center.

 

[ombrenelcielo]

Makes me wonder...What OS these activist use?

As all the new true hipsters, at least webOS.

 

[cmwade77]

Honestly, if we would just stop having a knee-jerk reaction to nuclear power, we would see that it is indeed our cleanest viable option at present for our power needs and we could get off of coal, drastically reduce our dependence on oil, etc.

There is even technology that allows the nuclear waste to be recycled into more power, until it is completely safe.

Now, I am not saying that it should be our only power source, but it should be part of our strategy for providing power and it is organizations like Greenpeace that is keeping that from happening.

Now as for solar and other forms of energy, they are no where near as environmentally friendly as they are made out to be, due to the materials needed to produce the equipment and the shipping that is then required, due to where it is found, etc.

Yes, we are getting better, but not there yet and it is still very expensive compared to other sources.

 

[smokedart]

Meh

I can't tell anymore when Greenpeace is trying to call attention to something important or just trolling for attention. They used to have a message, now they're just whining.

They lost me by being against nuclear power. Is nuclear perfect? No. But there is simply nothing else as clean that is ready for the heavy lifting of power generation, and it's vastly better than coal.

 

[Discoverer]

Here is something more important for Greenpeace to worry about.

 

[KnightWRX]

Also data centres never run all the server at all times.

Uh ?

 

[usptact]

I acknowledge all the good thing Greenpeace is intending but I *DO NOT* believe that they are completely out of politics. This means we can use this tool to sue, harm and even push out of business some company which does not complies to those super strict rules (read - have not enough money).

Greenpeace = political tool

 

[Blueflame1138]

Greenpeace has been tainted for me, ever since they damaged 100sq metres of healthy coral reef by crashing one of their fossil fuelled ships into it. Why do the words Pot, Kettle and Black spring to mind?

 

[swordfish5736]

So who hosts the green peace servers?

 

[daxomni]

I hate Greenpeace. It's just another trolling green company that will never be happy.

And some folks will never be happy until the laws of physics change to allow them to pollute more and more without repercussion.

I like some of what Greenpeace does, but lately all they seem to do is sit around and bitch.

I think they just want to draw attention to what else can be done and who has the power to make those changes.

Computing costs continue to go down, while efficiency & processing power continue to go up....So we are getting more efficient every generation.....but that is not good enough.

Very true. Until the net pollution levels drop it's all for not.

Even without all this phony "Green Movement" stuff, we as a society get more and more efficient in the use of our resources because for one reason technology improves. Computers use less energy, TVs use less energy, etc. etc. Why, not because of ridiculous regulations, but because of the free market!

How do you explain that America still has among the highest per-capita energy use in the whole world?

I'm all for saving endangered species, but this crusade to single out businesses because they are actually providing jobs to our society has got to stop! Unless you provide a sensible substitute stop yapping about how bad things are.

Why does it have to stop? Seems to me that as Apple keeps getting better and better at being green their revenue still keeps going up and up.

This will be a fun one to watch. Been told for years by one of my financial consultants that Greenpeace and other environmental groups makes money by shorting the stock of the company they critique.

If this were even remotely true then what do they have to show for it? Where did all the money go and why is Greenpeace still so tiny? This sounds like the sort of thing lazy folks tell themselves in order to pacify their own conscience.

 

[johncrab]

Someone let me know when Greenpeace does something that is relevant again.

 

[Small White Car]

So who hosts the green peace servers?

Oh, we don't want to go down this path. By that logic no one here who owns an iPhone will be allowed to complain about iPhones.

This place would be dead within a week.

 

[TrentS]

Make It Affordable....

Greenpeace and other "green" groups should be lobbying Washington to figure out how to bring down the high cost of solar power alternatives and other sustainable eneries, instead of griping about big companies that CAN afford it, and are actually doing something about it already.

As long as the price of these "green systems" are unatainable by the every day person, we will never see them adopted on a regular basis.

 

[Daveoc64]

The issue here is not that Apple isn't trying, it's that they could do more.

The company claims to be green, but doesn't do all that it can.

It doesn't mean that other companies are doing it better or worse.

 

[RawBert]