Apple says it’s now powered by renewable energy worldwide

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/10/apple-building-171-a...

The tech giants all pursue this strategy now. They build out renewable energy projects near their datacenters, put solar panels on the roof of their buildings and purchase renewable energy offsets for everything else.

For instance, Google.

https://www.engadget.com/2018/04/04/google-wind-solar-offset...

Microsoft is on the same path.

https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2018/03/21/new-sol...

Am I misunderstanding something? How does this work?

> Apple says that when it purchases REQs, “we require that they are Green-e Energy certified and come from the same power grid—and preferably the same state — as the Apple facility they support.”

So "whatever power generation method is used on that grid" does actually have to include an equivalent amount of renewable energy, although it presumably also includes fossil fuels.

>their use of non-renewable energy, so they can make the

>claim that their net consumption of non-renewable

> electricity is negative.

Yes, or than can get a (or create ;)) a power consumption plan. I mean in Germany there are various plans like they exist for telecommunication providers. Of course the power is in part nuclear, from coal etc. but as you say the net consumption can be 0. Greenpeace Energy has as far as I know the most progressive interpretation of that as they make sure new power plants are built.

Climate change is a cluster-f-bomb that will evolve into blatant seriousness over tens of decades. It won't directly ruin civilization, either, so if we avoid any major wars based on scarcity or refugee crises we're likely just looking at a major remodeling of humanities day-to-day and some intense population events moreso than annihilation.

From that perspective, I'm gonna say "kiiiiiiiinda".

It's not like what Apple is doing is _bad_, but let's get real: they're stating above the fold that their green investments are no solution for their massive 24/7 computing needs. They're investing in fungable offsets, but the underlying energy production is still carbon intensive. Their approach doesn't cover their own needs, and can't scale to any industrially challenging or civilization-scale needs. We want to transition a lot of industry over to clean electrical processes that require more energy and we want to lift a few Billion out of poverty, too...

If we look at total energy usage on this planet and future demands we see that funging some minor percentage of electricity production (not energy!), is just moving around some lipstick on a pig and making sure the brand is "eco friendly"...

Fundamentally we need to be looking at technologies that eliminate the need for the coal plant to keep the datacenter open, the peaker gas plants that handle bursty loads, and for burning oil to get the workers/supplies in and out of the building. We don't need electrical tech that's "green" on top of existing infrastructure, we need green tech that displaces and eliminates existing energy infrastructure.

Bluntly, if you care about that 50 year picture: the answer is fission, with a vague and slight possibility of fusion (maybe).

One of them is how it influence internal decisions now and in the future. Another one is how it influence employees and their social circle.

But the most important thing is the total removal of the feeling of responsibility: it becomes an economic metrics. One of the things it means is the total lack of incentive to actually have results as long as it looks like you do have results, and so no checks will be ever done that the "commited" suppliers will actually do things correctly, and not just fake it.

I agree with your edit: it's a good start, and a good thing. At the very least it makes the promotion of a good value. But it's not the end of the effort as they promote it. It's barely the beginning.

The products have extremely long usage cycles relative to the industry standard. It's such that they've integrated the environmental impact deep into their product design and business.

You can argue that this is simply a byproduct, but they've talked a lot about it over the years that it's pretty deliberate.

Not sure if I want them to spend resources and make products more expensive just so I can repair my 10 year old iPhone myself. I have no desire spending time repairing an old phone that isnt usable already anyway due to its aged hardware.

Not sure if that only applies to recent devices, or everything it's ever sold.

1: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/data-center-faqs/apple-da...

Apple is not perfect, but the energy Tim puts in making this stuff happens is beyond marketing desire.

Apple's core business is not environment protection, it's development of technology and applications for that tech.

That they're using the vehicle that is Apple to push for green energy is remarkable, putting pressure on the other giants. But this kind of expectation, that they should move away from the Mecka of tech devs. in order to push the envelope further would only lessen the net impact on their environmental work..

- as other commenters have pointed out, many employees who live more than a short drive from the office use shuttles. Not as good as public transit civically, but comparable ecologically.

- the vast majority of Apple’s 140k or so employees work in Apple Stores. Your post remains correct, but it is a fairly small number of employees who are operating in the dysfunctional urban quagmire that is the Bay Area.

It’s sad that the most upvoted comment has to be as always the contrarian picking the tiniest detail to diminish a laudable achievement.

Not when you realize that clean energy refers only to the production and consumption of electricity and has nothing whatsoever to do with supplies or with animals of any kind, unless you are using electricity produced by cows running in a circle.