
Apple's Data Centers Now Running on 100% Renewable Energy - robin_reala
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/03/21/apples-data-centers-now-running-on-100-renewable-energy-corporate-facilities-at-75/
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barney54
This is some pretty deceptive marketing. Apple's data centers still run on
coal in places like North Carolina because that's is what is producing the
electricity on the grid.

Their renewable projects produce a decent amount of electricity, but one of
the most critical issues of the electrical grid is stability and solar, even
with the fuel cells does not provide enough electricity on cloudy days or over
night.

Solar, wind, biogas and other renewables rely on coal in places like North
Carolina to keep the grid running. This marketing might make some people feel
good, but it is deceptive.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Simultaneously correct and incorrect :-) A number of great studies have shown
the futility of depending on transient energy renewables (solar, wind, tides)
for all generation, and yet the ability to cover peak loads does directly
reduce the required amount of non-renewable fuel. If you're renewables
generate the same amount of energy during their 'active' hours, that you
consume in total, you have effectively arbitraged your use of non-renewables
by carrying the load for others during the 'active' time and using their power
during inactive times. The total amount of coal/gas/oil burned to create power
for the 24 hr period is not affected by the amount of energy your datacenter
used.

Given the drop in gas prices I expect that even in NC the power folks are
considering changing/upgrading their power plants to burn that instead.

~~~
barney54
Solar and wind do not necessary help cover peak loads--because they are not
reliable. Instead, much of the peak load will be covered by peaking plants
(which are generally natural gas).

For example, here's the current load data for the California grid operator:
<http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx#Renewables> Note that today's
peak electricity production will come at 9pm--far after solar is helpful.

Solar and wind also don't help keep the lights on in the middle of the night--
that's the role of baseload plants like coal and nuclear.

According to the Energy Information Administration as of December 2012, 40
percent of NC's electricity came from coal and 39 percent from nuclear.
<http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=NC#tabs-4>

~~~
ChuckMcM
Ok, perhaps this works better:

100% of what Apple said is true, on a monthly basis the amount of energy they
consume in their data centers is exactly equivalent to the amount of energy,
generated by renewable sources, that they create or buy.

------
smackfu
More info: <http://www.apple.com/environment/renewable-energy/>

It seems like the North Carolina one is home-grown solar, the Oregon one is
hydroelectric (as are most datacenters in Oregon), and the California one is
(purchased) wind power.

~~~
adventured
Their North Carolina datacenter isn't getting even a tiny fraction of its
power from solar. So I'm not sure what they're calling renewable energy. It's
basically a flat out lie.

~~~
Xuzz
How do you know that more about this than Apple does? I don't see any reason
to believe they're lying, from what you said?

~~~
jws
He doesn't. The energy at the NC datacenter is a combination of solar, fuel
cells driven by biogas†, and grid power offset with purchased clean energy
credits‡.

␄

† This doesn't mean that the methane molecules entering the fuel cell came
from the biogas facility. The biogas gets pumped into the natural gas system,
and gas comes out at the Apple spigot, but no one tags and sorts the methane
molecules in between. That would be silly.

‡ Which means they pay a premium to cause renewable energy to be produced. If
tagging molecules was silly in the gas section, there isn't even a physical
thing you could tag on the grid. The electrons only move back and forth a few
inches in the wires, and joules aren't “real”. A lot of the joules going into
that grid are cheap coal, a tiny bit of them are the more expensive
renewables. Apple is paying to put enough renewables in to cover their use.

~~~
marshray
_Apple is paying to put enough renewables in to cover their use_

How is this different than what the rest of us call "the power bill"?

Is there some higher rate you can choose to pay for renewable Joules?

~~~
singlow
yes

~~~
marshray
So there is a special thing called "renewable energy" which travels over the
same grid as ordinary energy. It can be substituted for ordinary energy (but
not vice-versa) and commands a premium price over ordinary energy.

This site looks pretty authoritative:
<http://www.nrel.gov/learning/re_basics.html>

Hydroelectric power is considered "renewable" for what seem like good reasons.
Yet, if I lived next door to Hoover Dam I would not expect to be charged extra
for the privilege of consuming its locally-grown renewability. In fact, I
would expect to pay less because there would be less transport loss to offset.

I'm trying to figure out to what extent this amounts to Apple writing a check
to someone to bless their electricity, much like the selling of indulgences.

~~~
socillion
Producing renewable energy gives you credits which represent a cost difference
between regular electricity and renewable.

The actual renewable electricity counts as regular energy, and anyone across
the country can buy credits to say they subsidized renewable energy somewhere.

~~~
marshray
OK, I'm not saying this a bad thing to do.

I'm wondering where's the ROI for a for-profit corporation in "buying credits
to say they subsidized renewable energy somewhere" other than, say, Marketing?

When one sets out to write checks to charities the Hoover Dam isn't exactly
the first to come to mind.

~~~
socillion
Yeah, it's just marketing.

------
plugger
Personally I'm more interested in WHAT they're running in these data centers.
I suspect it's not wall to wall Mac Mini's. So what's Apple's back end running
on?

~~~
SenorWilson
Here's a possible answers:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/09/apple_maiden_data_ce...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/09/apple_maiden_data_center/)

Possibly giving HP some money :)

~~~
plugger
Cheers for the link. Now I wonder what they're running on from a software
perspective.

------
rfurlong
This is great, but I bet apple's suppliers and manufacturers aren't anywhere
close to this level of renewable energy.

~~~
bluthru
"This is great but everything isn't perfect yet, so meh."

~~~
furyg3
"Meh" is a pretty good way of summarizing humanity's energy relationship with
the environment.

------
robododo
Too bad most of iCloud isn't even on Apple's DCs:
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/02/icloud_runs_on_micro...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/02/icloud_runs_on_microsoft_azure_and_amazon/)

I'm not sure what all they use, but much of their storage is still done by
msft and amzn. I do not believe this has changed since the article was
written.

------
skytalon
This is a good thing they are doing. However, I wonder why they have so many
different power adapters for their MBP, MBA and rMBP's. Each one is going to
go into a landfill one day and Apple could certainly design it so that they
reduce the environmental impact that comes with creating more stuff of this
kind that is so avoidable.

~~~
r00fus
wtf are you talking about? Until late last year for the past 6 years before
that, they had exactly one adapter profile - magsafe. Recently they added a
2nd profile, and introduced an converter so old bricks can still be reused
(which I'm doing right now). You can even use an underpowered brick - don't
expect your high-wattage MBP to charge as fast, but it works.

Apple is one of the good guys here. Compare/contrast with Sony or Dell - it's
night & day.

~~~
skytalon
I'm referring to the fact that they have 6 adapters, as listed on this page:
[http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/mac_accessori...](http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_mac/mac_accessories/power).
They don't really need 6, do they?

------
trotsky
How does this square with their new campus that's slated to be ready in 2015
and be primarily powered by their own natural gas generating station? [1] Have
the plans changed?

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Campus#Apple_Campus_2>

~~~
cowsandmilk
From Apple's Description of the campus [1]:

"The project’s overall energy needs will be provided by renewable energy. The
majority will be generated on-site through the use of photovoltaics and fuel
cells with directed biogas. These will be supplemented by grid purchased
renewable energy if needed during periods of peak demand."

Where do you view this as conflicting with the fact that their current campus
is now 100% renewable?

[1] [https://s3.amazonaws.com/apple-
campus2-project/Project_Descr...](https://s3.amazonaws.com/apple-
campus2-project/Project_Description_Submittal5.pdf)

~~~
trotsky
I guess their plans changed.

Here's Jobs saying that they'll be producing their own power using natural
gas:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gtuz5OmOh_M#t=485s)

------
hydrology
I'm wondering how much space would be left if every company in the states all
decide to switch to solar energy.

~~~
mkr-hn
I haven't read through this yet, but it looks like an attempt at answering
that question: <http://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/127>

~~~
anonfunction
"... we arrive at 496,804,500,000 square meters or 496,805 square kilometers
(191,817 square miles) as the area required to power the world with solar
panels. This is roughly equal to the area of Spain."

~~~
aaronbrethorst
As was pointed out, that's the whole world, not the United States. And the
Sahara Desert is 3.629 million square miles. Sounds like that would be a great
place to site 200,000 square miles of solar panels. Of course, this would be
infeasible for any number of reasons ranging from geopolitics to
superconductors, which is why it's a thought experiment.

~~~
anonfunction
The most obvious problem being that transmitting the power from North Africa,
to say Hawaii would pose a significant challenge.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Like I said, superconductors.

------
jwrigh13
Is that why the app store is so slow?

------
LAMike
I wonder if the will start selling solar panels as a spinoff similar to how
AWS got started

~~~
josh2600
The problem isn't generating the power... It's moving it.

~~~
barney54
As well as storing the energy so have enough electricity when demand is high.

~~~
tacticus
Copy the UK perhaps?

Large hydro dams that get water pumped into them via the renewable and then
discharge when needed.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grid_Reserve_Service>

------
octix
It's a good collateral effect for the environment, but it's all about money.

~~~
omfg
Then why isn't everyone doing it? And if it does become all about 'the money'
then that's great, whatever gets large companies on-board with being as
environmentally responsible as possible can only be a good thing..

The faster it becomes a no-brainer decision the better.

~~~
octix
Who knows, may be they cannot afford it !?

I just think it's dust in eyes :) in 2011 was least green because of it's coal
usage and now it's pure 100%...

------
nisdec
Greenwashing.

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alxeder
is foxconn running green as well?

------
doctorwho
How much energy would they get from burning $1 bills that they've collected
over the years from all the Pabst swilling hipsters?

~~~
overloaded
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