Apple Promises 100 Percent Green Data Center

[Guest]

Apple may be targeted by Greenpeace for using dirty coal to power its iCloud, but the company promises that it will soon be operating a new data center in Prineville, Oregon which will be running on 100 percent renewable energy.

Apple Promises 100 Percent Green Data Center : Read more

 

[DroKing]

I wouldnt believe anything Apple spews. Id back Greenpeace at this.

 

[kunzite]

They could just convince some iSheep to run on some hamster wheels for power. Apple just needs to drop generalized techy words and they'll do it. Or call it art.

 

[Sgtmurder]

While I don't like Apple or the way the do things generally, it wouldn't be the first time Greenpeace is full of shit (and other renewable sources of energy).

 

[kryzzay]

Oh gawd who gives a #U@&.

Next it will be the toilet police saying they don't use 100% recycled shit paper!

 

[wardoc22]

Meanwhile, in other less important news. Gas Prices are still extremely high, Syria violence might end soon as Syrian Forces are pulling out of the cities, 9000 us marines are being moved off Okinawa.

 

[husker]

Anyone at Greenpeace live in a house? Eat food? Wear clothing? Do they use any mode of transportation such as riding a bike or borrowing their girlfriend's step dad's car? All these things required the consumption of non-renewable, carbon-spewing, air-and-water-polluting energy. Thanks a lot for helping to ruin the planet, Greenpeace.

 

[Eman25th]

Invest in Green paint suppliers! if this deal goes through you could make a ton of money. But green is a horrible color to paint a new data center, i just don't get hippies anymore.

 

[CKKwan]

I think this is at least a good intention behind this. Apple is certainly doing a good job.

When talked about green, the data center itself uses thousands of computer which produced in a factory that produces tons of toxic waste. If it is talking about the energy. The solar panel produced in the same way as micro chip. Wind Turbine produced using rare earth material. Not to mention about nuclear energy. Geothermo energy maybe?

Anyway, this is not the fault of Apple, a data center is setup because there is a demand. And the one who demand for it are..... You and Me.

 

[memadmax]

rofl!
This building is gonna have solar lighting, skylights and everything....
So...
On a cloudy day you are SOL... can't see, can't work, computers won't start, no coffee from the coffee makers... etc etc etc....

>_>

 

[memadmax]

I don't know why we have to hang ourselves when the rest of the world keeps on going on its usual way....

Oh, and by the way... air pollution in the US is at an all time low, lower than back in the 50's and that is according to the ***EPA*** on its LAST air pollution measurement back in 2008... but guess what?
There hasn't been a measurement since, at least the information hasn't been released to the public........

google is your friend....

 

[ikyung]

Solar is the short-term answer right now. America uses about 20million barrels of oil a day. Which is around 7 billion barrels of oil a year. There is an estimated 21 billion barrels in reserve left in America. That is three years worth before America runs out of oil. Which is the reason we started importing oil since the 90s.

Dr. Hubbert predicted America would run out of oil by 2010. He was right, but the reason we lasted this long is because we started importing oil and because we started raising the price of oil. In 2008, oil prices were at record high which saw the growth rate drop to -5%. Currently, the annual growth rate of oil consumption is at +2%. If we continue this trend. Not only will America run out of oil, the entire world's reserve of oil will disappear by 2050.

We don't have much time and need to find a new source of energy. Oil and coal are the biggest sources of energy right now in the world, and it will be depleted before our life time is over. Green is the way to go.. at least until we find a new source of energy.

 

[CaedenV]

[citation][nom]ikyung[/nom]Solar is the short-term answer right now. America uses about 20million barrels of oil a day. Which is around 7 billion barrels of oil a year. There is an estimated 21 billion barrels in reserve left in America. That is three years worth before America runs out of oil. Which is the reason we started importing oil since the 90s.Dr. Hubbert predicted America would run out of oil by 2010. He was right, but the reason we lasted this long is because we started importing oil and because we started raising the price of oil. In 2008, oil prices were at record high which saw the growth rate drop to -5%. Currently, the annual growth rate of oil consumption is at +2%. If we continue this trend. Not only will America run out of oil, the entire world's reserve of oil will disappear by 2050.We don't have much time and need to find a new source of energy. Oil and coal are the biggest sources of energy right now in the world, and it will be depleted before our life time is over. Green is the way to go.. at least until we find a new source of energy.[/citation]
We may not have a lot of oil, but we have something like 8x the amount of coal as the rest of the world combined. You can use coal for power plants, or turn it into oil. We are not running out of power resources any time soon. We have enough resources to power the world for well over 100 years at current growth rates, and as things move to solar and fuel cell tech (because geo thermal and wind power are just bad jokes), we hopefully will not need to resort to that.

At any rate, anyone else think it interesting that apple tells its own customers that they do not know how to hold their phones right, but then pander to greenpeace? And my pander I mean acknowledge that these morons exist in the first place!

 

[brett1042002]

[citation][nom]memadmax[/nom]rofl!This building is gonna have solar lighting, skylights and everything....So... On a cloudy day you are SOL... can't see, can't work, computers won't start, no coffee from the coffee makers... etc etc etc....>_>[/citation]

I'm not a solar cell expert by no means, but I would think the solar panels would charge large UPSs that they would draw power from, and not directly from the cells. So on a rainy day, they could run off the UPSs for an extended period of time without worry.

Then again, their engineers could be retards for all I know. /shrug

 

[tom in fairfax]

Gosh, Apple just continues to dazzle us with its genius. Imagine that, being able to get electricity from the sun. I'll bet that iCloud will run great on cloudy days (not that Oregon gets any) and at night. Once Obama gets his way and shuts down all our coal plants, the phrase 24/7 will become something like 8/3, weather permitting.

 

[sanirudh]

I expected their data center to be 100% white, not green.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]ikyung[/nom]Solar is the short-term answer right now. America uses about 20million barrels of oil a day. Which is around 7 billion barrels of oil a year. There is an estimated 21 billion barrels in reserve left in America. That is three years worth before America runs out of oil. Which is the reason we started importing oil since the 90s.Dr. Hubbert predicted America would run out of oil by 2010. He was right, but the reason we lasted this long is because we started importing oil and because we started raising the price of oil. In 2008, oil prices were at record high which saw the growth rate drop to -5%. Currently, the annual growth rate of oil consumption is at +2%. If we continue this trend. Not only will America run out of oil, the entire world's reserve of oil will disappear by 2050.We don't have much time and need to find a new source of energy. Oil and coal are the biggest sources of energy right now in the world, and it will be depleted before our life time is over. Green is the way to go.. at least until we find a new source of energy.[/citation]
LFTR Thorium reactors have been possible since they were invented at Oak Ridge in the 1950's, but no-one has picked them up, apart from the Chinese who are pushing it as the big power system of the future.

Renewables suck ass, America needs to wake up and invest in Thorium reactors

 

[beardguy]

Headline: 5 more Foxconn workers commit suicide, Apple spends billions on polluting less.

 

[rosen380]

beardguy: So, Apple spends money to use solar tech to displace some coal and they are the assholes ... or they use coal and pollute the environment and then they are the assholes.

So, which would you like them to do?

BTW- the article quotes 7MW solar, and as far as I can tell, that would cost around $25-35M, not billions. they have almost $100B if they spend $25-35M on this solar array is like your average Joe with $20k in the bank spending $4-5 vs $0.75 to get a CFL rather than an incandescent bulb.

 

[beardguy]

[citation][nom]rosen380[/nom]beardguy: So, Apple spends money to use solar tech to displace some coal and they are the assholes ... or they use coal and pollute the environment and then they are the assholes. So, which would you like them to do? BTW- the article quotes 7MW solar, and as far as I can tell, that would cost around $25-35M, not billions. they have almost $100B if they spend $25-35M on this solar array is like your average Joe with $20k in the bank spending $4-5 vs $0.75 to get a CFL rather than an incandescent bulb.[/citation]

My only point was that Apple refuses to fix the terrible conditions with it's manufacturing facilities in China, yet has no problem spending all kinds of money on pleasing Green Peace. Basically what this says to me is that Apple cares more about the environment than human life.

In the end it's all a political game and Apple has already sent a strong message that it doesn't give a shit about it's Chinese workers.

 

[targetdrone]

What are they using to cool their servers? Refrigerants including propane, dry ice, and nitrogen are bad for the environment.

 

[beardguy]

Solar power in Oregon ... good luck, it's cloudy like 300 days out of the year.

 

[rosen380]

'My only point was"

Well, they have no facilities in China. That is Foxconn, an entirely separate and independent company, that assembles hardware for dozens of electronics companies. Apple could offer Foxconn $1B extra and there would be nothing stopping them from just giving multi-million dollar bonuses to their executives rather than the factory workers.

As stated about a billion times on Tom's, the suicide rates at Foxconn are much lower than the Chinese averages, so citing a dozen or so annual suicides in a company of nearly a million employees, doesn't really hold a lot of weight.

The work environment might not be great, but from anything I've read it is much better than the alternatives there. Foxconn currently starts their employees at 1800 Yuan. Granted the following is from 2005 [I don't have anything more recent], but that seems pretty decent considering it is manual labor vs jobs that require some significant training:

http://www.worldsalaries.org/china.shtml

Salaries by profession, 2005 [average, not starting salaries!]
Pilot 6844
Engineer 2243
Computer programmer 2239
Postman 2101
Nurse 1664
Office Clerk 1596
Accountant 1466
Flight Attendant 1307

Looking at what other jobs pay in China, Foxconn doesn't seem like as much of a lousy deal. Would you rather build iPads for, starting, 1800 Yuan a month... or be a miner and WORK YOUR WAY UP TO 1291 per month?

 

[del35]

"They could just convince some iSheep to run on some hamster wheels for power."

That sounds magically innovative. Surely Apple has already patented the idea.

 

[beardguy]

@rosen380

Dude, you are arguing semantics here. I understand Foxconn is not owned by Apple. But Apple is probably the single biggest client, and thus, have the most power to change things. They turned a blind eye to these inhumane working conditions and have known about them since 2007. Yet they continued using them to manufacture their products. Do you truly think Apple cares? Let me give you the answer, no they don't. The only reason they even attempted to change things with Foxconn is because it got out to the public what was happening in the factories.

And going "green" with this new data center is a total PR move, isn't it obvious?