Slashdot Mirror


Apple: Greenpeace's Cloud Critique Driven By Bogus Numbers

miller60 writes "Apple says Greenpeace has wildly overestimated the amount of power it uses in its data center in North Carolina, and used that bad math to give the company a low grade on sustainability. Apple says it uses 20 megawatts of power at its iDataCenter, a fraction of Greenpeace's estimate of 100 megawatts in a new report on energy use by cloud computing providers. Apple says that its huge solar array and biogas-powered fuel cell will supply 60 percent of the facility's power, not the 10 percent claimed by Greenpeace."

7 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What it really means: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Greenpeace is more than happy to distort the truth for propaganda purposes. They've said in the past that the whole reason they single out Apple is because it makes good news. And they are right.

  2. Re:What it really means: by msobkow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Distort" the truth? Hell, they just made up some numbers and went with that as the "reasoning" for their rant.

    But as usual with Greenpeace, it's 99% bullshit believed by no one except the Greenpeace faithful.

    And from what I see, the Greenpeace faithful do definitely qualify as a cult, complete with wingnut behaviour.

    --
    I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  3. Re:Greenpeace is not credible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Absolutely true. The real intelligent green thinkers are working with the system to make things better in baby steps - the only way things can change. We don't generally notice these people, but they do make a difference.

    Greenpeace is anti-system and falls into tired false extremist eco groupthink, which obviously isn't very productive.

  4. Re:What it really means: by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    No, actually, Greenpeace can pull numbers out of their ass all day long, and few people challenge them on it, because "it's for a good cause", and "they're just trying to save the planet", etc. The whole "somewhere in the middle" has more relevance when you're talking about arguments with lots of grey areas. We're talking about simple numbers here. Greenpeace made a bunch of guesses on the numbers involved, and they've been called out on their very bad estimates and incorrect assumptions.

    Apple has all the number they need for a very accurate reading on power usage. Unless you're going to accuse Apple of out and out falsifying those numbers (it would be an incredibly stupid thing to do, as one whistleblower would blow the lid on this), then I'm going to have to side with Apple here as being closer to "the truth".

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  5. Why does anyone listen to Greenpeace anymore? by SirWinston · · Score: 5, Insightful

    These Greenpeace types are the same people who've prevented us from developing and deploying newer, safer nuclear power plants to replace the less safe older ones which are forced to keep running--and which could replace polluting coal plants and help us immensely in the transition away from the fossil fuels they themselves also decry. They're the same folks who stirred up opposition to Yucca Mountain, yet use the lack of such a facility as a talking point against nuclear. They're the same folks who also fight hydro and anything else with "environmental impact" (i.e., changing anything at all about a local environment). Until they're willing to back some realistic alternatives to current power generation--other than living like Luddite hippies--I tune these idiots out. Solar and wind currently supply only about 1% of our national power generation needs, and there's no chance they'll ever supply it all. Until the Greenpeace types back something useful to our situation, they're the same ones keeping us stuck on fossil fuels. Fuck 'em.

    --
    "It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word."--Andrew Jackson
  6. Re:Greenpeace is not credible by mekkab · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why did I join Greenpeace in college? well, it's the same reason why I joined the vegetarian club in college. And the same reason I participated in the Occupy Wall Street protests.

    To meet girls with "evolved" morality. Who would let me touch them, without clothing. Basically, for tail.

    --
    In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
  7. Re:Excellent... by Turken · · Score: 5, Insightful

    too true. What would be really shocking news is if we found that for once greenpeace was NOT lying to get attention. And it's not just Apple. Basic M.O. for these schmucks is to simply pick whatever company is big in the news at the moment and then give that company a bad "rating" based on some imaginary numbers on some arbitrary scale.

    For several years in a row when the Wii was at it's popularity peak, the greenpeace "report card" gave Nintendo a failing grade -- for the sole reason that Nintendo had the common sense to ignore them, and refused to give any detailed information about their business operations. Thus, in the mind of the eco-nuts the company *had* to be hiding something horrible, and thus was *clearly* an eco-failure.