Panel Installation Nearly Complete at Apple's Massive North Carolina Solar Farm

[Atomike]

Three Mile Island
Chernobyl
Fukushima
All the nuclear waste that is lying around waiting for a permanent home
The phenomenally destructive mining practices that are needed to supply the raw product

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Look at the radiation released from those nuclear plants, and then compare it to the radiation you receive every day from the sun when you're outside. Fukushima, for example, I've heard has 1/3 the radiation level of Denver Colorado (Denver is at a higher elevation and thus more natural solar radiation). Should we evacuate Denver?
People are terrified of the word nuclear. That's it. It's irrational. How many deaths are associated with spent nuclear fuel?
Seriously - I wish people wouldn't get their news from the Daily Show, SNL or MSNBC.

 

[damir00]

NG is a fossil fuel. If they were using NG, there's no way Apple could claim they were 100% renewable

From a public article...

Apple will actually use “Directed Biogas,” meaning that the biogas from the landfills will be cleaned and injected into the local natural gas pipeline, and the fuel cells won’t be directly running off of the biogas. But Apple’s biogas supplier will inject the equivalent amount of biogas that would be used by the 4.8 MW of fuel cells.

You're being zoomed, buddy, if you take corporate pronouncements - ANY corporate announcements - at face value

 

[Liquorpuki]

From a public article...

You're being zoomed, buddy, if you take corporate pronouncements - ANY corporate announcements - at face value

So a Federal form filed with both the state Public Utilites Commissiom and the Dept of Energy = a corporate announcement? C'mon dude that's stupid

And all directed biogas means is they're using a REC. Go google that for next hour and get at me once you figure out why RECs are necessary

 

[damir00]

Yep.

"Apple Inc.’s 4.8-megawatt fuel-cell power plant near Maiden qualifies as a renewable-energy project, even though the cells run on natural gas. That's because of an ruling North Carolina regulators made with little notice three weeks ago."

The fuel cells are powered by natural gas, which the state doesn't consider a renewable source of energy. But Bloom Energy, which is building the Apple project and installing its own fuel cells, asked the N.C. Utilities Commission in February for a declaratory ruling that “directed biogas” is eligible to be declared a renewable resource.

Apple specifically cites the March ruling in its application, which asks that the project be approved as a renewable-energy plant.

You're just plain flat out wrong. They're playing lobbying games, and you fell for it. The information is all there for anybody actually wanting to know, and it doesn't take "an hour" of googling.

Obladi oblada...

 

[Liquorpuki]

Yep.

You're just plain flat out wrong. They're playing lobbying games, and you fell for it. The information is all there for anybody actually wanting to know, and it doesn't take "an hour" of googling.

Obladi oblada...

Thats retarded

First of all, nobody's lobbying

Second, you're quoting a second hand source that doesn't understand REC's or how the grid works. I gave you the firsthand source, which was a federal regulatory filing. You dismissed it as a corporate announcement which makes me believe that either you can't tell the difference between a form and a PR memo, or you didn't bother to look at it.

Third, I told you to go look up a REC, which you were too lazy to do so I'll break it down for you so you stop arguing with me about this stuff because you have no clue what you're talking about.

If Apple wants to feed their fuel cell with biogas, what are their options? One is to spend billions of dollars to build hundred miles of private pipeline through NIMBY territory right to their fuel cell. They'd be responsible for everything from lobbying the NIMBY's and municipalities to get that pipe built to maintenance to responding to underground service alerts. No company's gonna do that because it's overengineering, not cost effective, and would take 10 years before they even break ground. So instead they connect to an existing pipeline and inject the biogas up stream.

From a physics standpoint, why does it not matter where they inject the gas? Because all that Bloom Box cares about is methane. Atomically there's no difference between methane that comes from a fracking operation and methane that comes from biomass. Unless you want to spend a trillion dollars to tag each methane molecule that comes from biomass with an isotope, there's also no way to ID them once they're in a blend. So they inject it upstream and quantify the input with a REC.

So far you've tried to convince me that a fuel cell is the same thing as a natural gas plant, that Apple is using natural gas (even though I linked you the filing where they list their NG input as 0), that a Federal filing = a corporate announcement, and at this point I get the feeling you're just arguing to argue. Give it up

 

[damir00]

So instead they connect to an existing pipeline and inject the biogas up stream.

LMAO! Now you're just taking a roundabout way to say what I said - that Apple is running the fuel cells on natural gas. Welcome to Backtrack Highway. There sure are a lot of off-ramps between your original "Apple is not running on natural gas" to an exposition on why it's good that they are hooked up to a natural gas pipeline.

The ONLY reason this qualifies as a "renewable" source is because Apple's supplier lobbied the regulators to change the rule interpretations so it could be designated as such. Fundamentally no different than having Delicioso lobby Congress into "interpreting" pizza into a vegetable.

 

[Liquorpuki]

LMAO! Now you're just taking a roundabout way to say what I said - that Apple is running the fuel cells on natural gas. Welcome to Backtrack Highway. There sure are a lot of off-ramps between your original "Apple is not running on natural gas" to an exposition on why it's good that they are hooked up to a natural gas pipeline.

The ONLY reason this qualifies as a "renewable" source is because Apple's supplier lobbied the regulators to change the rule interpretations so it could be designated as such. Fundamentally no different than having Delicioso lobby Congress into "interpreting" pizza into a vegetable.

Interpret it how you want, I don't care anymore.

 

[localoid]

Re: the natural gas vs. biogas debate

Quoting from this source:

As is common practice, because biogas can be challenging to produce at specific locations, Apple will use what is known as “directed biogas” – that is, the fuel cells will run on natural gas, but Apple will pay to have biogas in the same volume added to the natural gas pipeline elsewhere. “That pipeline could even be across the country, but Apple will still be able to claim that their fuel cells are being renewably powered,” Greenpeace wrote, and it urged Apple to find an in-state source of biogas.

 

[Tech198]

...

Wonder how much money they blew on this one......

Still impressive though.

 

[damir00]

Interpret it how you want, I don't care anymore.

There is nothing left to interpret - your statement was simply, flatly wrong - as has now been amply demonstrated.

Cheers.

 

[Liquorpuki]

See, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Look at the radiation released from those nuclear plants, and then compare it to the radiation you receive every day from the sun when you're outside. Fukushima, for example, I've heard has 1/3 the radiation level of Denver Colorado (Denver is at a higher elevation and thus more natural solar radiation). Should we evacuate Denver?
People are terrified of the word nuclear. That's it. It's irrational. How many deaths are associated with spent nuclear fuel?
Seriously - I wish people wouldn't get their news from the Daily Show, SNL or MSNBC.

The industry is actually pretty polarized. You have industry guys like S David Freeman who are extremely anti-nuclear. I've seen the guy speak and he gets visibly agitated whenever somebody brings up nuclear and starts going on and on about how it's morally irresponsible to be storing waste underground. And this is a guy who's managed some of the biggest utilities in the nation. You also got a lot of old-timers who are anti-renewable because they think it's a waste of money and would rather that money get spent on improving existing infrastructure. Then you got guys like me who are both pro-nuclear and pro-renewables because the way the grid is currently operated, they're not interchangeable anyway - nuclear is used for baseload, renewables for variable load. In the end you just educate yourself and come up with your own opinion.

Quoting from this source:

As is common practice, because biogas can be challenging to produce at specific locations, Apple will use what is known as “directed biogas” – that is, the fuel cells will run on natural gas, but Apple will pay to have biogas in the same volume added to the natural gas pipeline elsewhere. “That pipeline could even be across the country, but Apple will still be able to claim that their fuel cells are being renewably powered,” Greenpeace wrote, and it urged Apple to find an in-state source of biogas.

Greenpeace is against RECs which is why they're making a big deal about directed biogas. What they don't get is there's no economically viable alternative and that atomically, there's no difference between a methane molecule taken from a landfill and a methane molecule collected by fracking. Calling it a natural gas pipeline is misleading because it implies everything in it comes from fracking. It's best to think of it as a methane grid or a general gas grid. For all purposes once that biogas is processed for injection, it's the same thing as fossil natural gas - a large amount of methane with a small amount of CO2, nitrogen, etc. Which is why you can stick it in the same pipeline.

The alternative to RECs is to have two separate infrastructures for both green energy/fuel and dirty energy/fuel. That means you have double the number of power lines and pipe all over the nation. Nobody's gonna do that

 

[MacinDoc]

LMAO! Now you're just taking a roundabout way to say what I said - that Apple is running the fuel cells on natural gas. Welcome to Backtrack Highway. There sure are a lot of off-ramps between your original "Apple is not running on natural gas" to an exposition on why it's good that they are hooked up to a natural gas pipeline.

The ONLY reason this qualifies as a "renewable" source is because Apple's supplier lobbied the regulators to change the rule interpretations so it could be designated as such. Fundamentally no different than having Delicioso lobby Congress into "interpreting" pizza into a vegetable.

I think you are missing the point. Apple is pumping methane into the pipeline from a biomass generator, then taking the same amount of methane out of the pipeline at another location. Whether it takes out the gas that was generated at the biomass generator or gas produced by fracking makes no difference, the molecules are the same. A biomass generating facility is considered green because it harnesses methane that would otherwise have been released into the atmosphere from decomposing biomass (where, by the way, it acts as a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2).

Just to be clear, this is essentially taking a more powerful greenhouse gas (methane has 20 times the heat trapping ability of CO2, according to the EPA) that would otherwise have been released into the atmosphere from the decomposing biomatter and burning it to produce a less powerful greenhouse gas (CO2). All the while producing energy as a byproduct.

Greenpeace wants Apple to build a dedicated pipeline to transport methane from its biofuel facility to its server farm. What is the point of this? Twice the number of pipelines will cause twice the amount of environmental destruction and twice the risk of leaks. I fail to see the benefit. But that's what happens when an organization is more interested in making a political statement than it is in the truth.

 

[iKing7]

If they knew they were going to do a solar panel farm I'm surprised they didn't choose to make it located in a desert climates like Arizona that has almost zero clouds, humidity, and storms.

 

[dponte]

FNC is actually a good counterbalance to every other network which believe it or not actually does lean left of center or extremely left. Just don't watch it only and don't listen to half of what Hannity says as he's the Rachel Maddow of the right and you should discount half of what she says too. Not watching FNC is actually doing yourself harm by making yourself exposed to only progressive kool-aid.

Yes! And to be clear, it's not the anti-MSNBC...FNC deserves a hell of a lot more credit, since the mainstream media attempts to constantly discredit it.

MSNBC has terrible ratings, as it should have. CNN is also a left-leaning 'news' channel NOT 'the news from the center' as it touts/as others claim it to be.

When people causally watch shows like Law and Order or The Simpsons (with a cartoon news helicopter flying around the opening segment that reads 'Fox News is #1 With Racists' on the side of it...it's time to WAKE UP and notice the bias and bigotry -towards conservatives or simply some of their ideas that even moderates would agree with- that exists in everyday media.)

Oh and be careful, because the moderators seem to be selective on MacRumors when it comes to talking about FNC. Usually, it starts with some idiot hater who just writes 'gee, it came from Fox News, what do you expect' or 'People must watch Fox News'...then it's followed by someone like myself or yourself who bring in a rebuttal of substance...then moderators delete all references, as if erased from existence.

 

[CFreymarc]

More unsubstantiated smears by anti-environmental whackos.

Dude, totally "substantiated" if you want to use big words. Quit working for them before you lose your soul.

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

 

[Thunderbird]

If you really want to know the dirt about Greenpeace, I suggest you read "Blown to Green Pieces" and a few other non-biased investigative reports on these guys. Of all these reports, there are allegations of:

* While Greenpeace is non-profit, many connected to them short stocks of the companies they publicly criticized for personal profit.

* Many living on the Rainbow Warrior reside at sea avoiding extraditions.

* They only promote saving "cute" animals thus redirecting paternal instincts away from child-rearing and toward their political cause.

* Many of their "environmental crime" photos have been examined by photo-analysis experts exposing them as Photoshopped beyond simple color correction editing.

* The active suppression of capitalism claiming it is "bad for the planet" while promoting socialist agenda. History shows, socialist government have a far greater history of environmental abuse than free market economies.

* A "Logan's Run" society where over 90% of volunteers or minimum wage Greenpeace employees are terminated at age 30 to recruit younger and more attractive activists.

It goes on and on. IMO, if Greenpeace complains about you, consider it a badge of honor that you are doing something right.

Dude, totally "substantiated" if you want to use big words. Quit working for them before you lose your soul.

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

Dude, take a look at the allegations you previously posted. None of them appear or are addressed in the Wikipedia article you linked.

And I don't work for them.

Troll harder

 

[XBColdFingers]

Civilization has an Environmental Impact

Look at Manhattan or San Francisco. Try to look thru the smog at Beijing. Everything we do has an environmental impact. We need electricity. We may not NEED iPhones AND iPads AND laptops, but all cellphones, tablets and computers use power. We may not NEED televisions (especially if we have iPads with Netflix) but we need refrigerators. We may not need ATMs to be open 24 x 7, but we sure got used to them. And we need schools and hospitals.

So the question is how do we power our homes, offices, stores, factories, warehouses? And to answer that question look at the environmental consequences of solar, wind, geothermal, biofuel (sustainable if from waste), hydro, nuclear, coal, methane (from fracking).

 

[stevejobz]

Wow 30 megawatts is a lot of power but i didn't know it would take this much space to make 30 megawatts. One wind turbine at the right place can make 30 megawatts just by itself.

 

[Liquorpuki]

Wow 30 megawatts is a lot of power but i didn't know it would take this much space to make 30 megawatts. One wind turbine at the right place can make 30 megawatts just by itself.

There's no such thing as a 30 MW wind turbine