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."

Comments

Fight the power!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, wait...

Excellent...

[mekkab]

This was a subtle ploy by data center competitors to use Greenpeace to get Apple to reveal their power consumption strategies... And it worked!

Re:Excellent...

[Anonymous Coward]

Greenpeace lied about Apple to get attention? No way! That's never happened before.

Re:Excellent...

[Turken]

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.

Re:Excellent...

[xaxa]

For several years in a row when the Wii was at it's popularity peak, the greenpeace "report card" gave Nintendo a failing grade

Do you own a Wii and a power consumption meter? I do (my electricity supplier gave me the meter, the government required it. It's supposed to help people reduce consumption).

Anyway, the Wii uses about 10-15W while on standby (I can't remember how much exactly). That's a huge amount, compared to almost everything else in the house. My bedroom is lit with less power!

Re:Excellent...

[canajin56]

It should be about 10W, and that's because you have it in Connect24 standby (orange light). Turn off Connect24 (which keeps USB and Wifi powered and connected to Nintendo's servers so you can get Nintendo messages, data updates for the weather channel and other apps like that, and messages from friends). Consumer reports found it uses ~10W in this mode, which is more than the 2-3W that other consoles use when "off". But if you disable it (can tell you did it right because the light goes red instead of orange when it turns off) it drops to 1.3W. On the other hand, the Wii uses 15-18W when on and playing games, compared to the 155-200W drawn by a PS3 or a 360.

Re:Excellent...

[hairyfeet]

What is sad is that all these groups..PETA, Greenpeace, MAD, all started out with good intentions and goals, Greenpeace to stop whalers and those breaking treaties and polluting our oceans, MAD to stop drunk driving, PETA to insure the ethical treatment of food animals, but somewhere along the way the batshit fringes took over and frankly they are all loony tunes, PETA with the "sea kittens", the new head of MAD saying their goal is now prohibition (like we haven't seen what a failure THAT was) and Greenpeace with the constant lies.

Man its just a shame that you can't have an org that does good things hardly anymore without the batshit coming along and mucking everything up. All three originally had goals we could all stand behind, I mean nobody wants to see animals tortured, our oceans destroyed, or drunks plowing down families on the highway, but having sensible goals looks to be a thing of the past, its all loony tunes all the way down and i think that's a damned shame.

Re:Excellent...

[hairyfeet]

But then they become worse than nothing! the guys from South Park nailed it when they had the Klan who wanted to keep the SP flag come out against the flag because the knee jerk reaction would be to automatically vote the opposite of what the Klan wanted. in this case they have gone so far out of mainstream when anybody sees their name they think "total whackos" and this automatically gains sympathy for the ones they are against!

Frankly PETA, MAD, and Greenpeace would be more helpful to their causes if they didn't exist at all because they have pissed away any credibility they once had. damned shame as all three were originally worthy causes but now I'd probably buy any product made by a company opposed by them simply because i see them as self righteous whackjobs that just like on SP if they are against it then its probably something I'd support simply because they are so far from mainstream anymore. I mean you have blatant lies, Sea kittens (look it up if you haven't I swear its not a parody, they honestly think at PETA calling all fish sea kittens will keep people from eating fish) and prohibition...yep I'd buy anything they're against.

What it really means:

[wbr1]

Greenpeace: blah blah blah blah bad bad bad

Apple: blah blah blah blah good good good

The truth? Probably somewhere in the middle.

Re:What it really means:

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What it really means:

[msobkow]

"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.

Re:What it really means:

[Dutch Gun]

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".

Re:What it really means:

[FridgeFreezer]

Most environmentalists != scientists, it's about time journalists & politicians realised this before bending over to support whatever they dream up this week. How many times have Greenpeace bullied the world into things only to change their minds? Biofuel was the last one that springs to mind - "It's the future, we should all do it!" then just as the world starts to do it "It's destroying the rainforests, don't do it!" Unfortunately they will just shrug and play their "get out of jail free" card that lying about stuff is justified by "drawing attention to the issue". The sad thing is all this just gets in the way of people understanding/caring about/acting on the real issues which might actually benefit the planet.

Re:What it really means:

[Tharsman]

I love the Greenpeace "response to the response" where they doubt the numbers Apple bring forth:

While Apple is well known for making more expensive consumer products, if Apple’s plans for the $ 1Billion investment only generates 20MW in power demand, that would be taking the “Apple premium” to a whole new level.

So first "we want them to stop cutting corners and spend money to make green energy"

Now: "darn, these fools seem to be spending too much money to save up energy, must mean they are lying!"

Re:What it really means:

[cpu6502]

Greenpeace? Is this the same group that "rescues" animals from lab experiments or farm slaughterhouses, and then gasses them in a room (because they have no place to put these animals they "saved")? I recall the founder of Greenpeace now speaks-out against them.

Re:What it really means:

[Sponge Bath]

That was PETA, but both organizations are full of fact averse nuts so I can see confusing them. Nothing undermines your cause like being associated with crazy behavior.

Re:What it really means:

[Dishevel]

Fuck. I hate agreeing with Apple.
Now I hate Greenpeace even more for making me side with Apple.

Re:What it really means:

[Dishevel]

Someone once gave me a piece of advice many, many times.
At the time I hated him for telling me this in the end though I understood and am a better person for it.
"It doesn't fucking matter how you feel."
"It doesn't fucking matter what you think."
"It only matters what you do."

Re:What it really means:

[geekoid]

Why? Are you so emotionally tied up into a belief pattern that it actually bothers you to look at data and come to the same conclusion as Apple?

Maybe you should reflect on that.

Greenpeace is not credible

[Anonymous Coward]

I know my experience with meeting Greenpace activists in
Toronto in the 1980's -- all excited by Fuel Cell Technology
could not comprehend that the Hydrogen Economy relied
on having abundant Nuclear Energy. They were not the
brightest lot on the block.

They also did not seem to understand that Wind Turbines
are great bird whackers and kill more birds per year than
lit up skyscrappers in Toronto.

They also did not understand that the fabrication of solar
cells required extremely toxic chemicals such as Selinium
and also required large tracts of land (thus cut down the trees
or plow under farmland) to power entire cities.

From these people I met, if they were representative, I would
be surprised that they could calculate any energy efficiencies.
Like I said, they were not the brightest lot on the block.

LoL

Re:Greenpeace is not credible

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Greenpeace is not credible

[mekkab]

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.

Re:Greenpeace is not credible

[GodfatherofSoul]

Could've saved yourself a lot of aggregation by just throwing a keg party.

Re:Greenpeace is not credible

[cheesecake23]

Who modded this clown up? Almost every statement he makes is plain wrong.

I know my experience with meeting Greenpace activists in
Toronto in the 1980's -- all excited by Fuel Cell Technology
could not comprehend that the Hydrogen Economy relied
on having abundant Nuclear Energy. They were not the
brightest lot on the block.

The activists were right, you were wrong. The hydrogen economy doesn't require nuclear. Renewables would do equally well. Electrolyzers aren't very expensive per kilowatt and can run on intermittent electricity. Hydrogen is often pushed as a possible way of solving the whole intermittency issue for solar and wind power.

They also did not seem to understand that Wind Turbines
are great bird whackers and kill more birds per year than
lit up skyscrappers in Toronto.

I don't know about Toronto but here are the stats for Denmark, which gets 25% of its electricity from wind power. They have about 30,000 annual bird deaths from wind turbines, 1 million from cars, 2 million from window collisions, and 5 million from cats.

the fabrication of solar
cells required extremely toxic chemicals such as Selinium
and also required large tracts of land

Yes, some types of solar cells use toxic chemicals, but so do lots of other industries. As long as they get recycled there's no huge problem with this. But other solar cell types only use silicon, which is 100% harmless. Land requirements are large compared to nuclear, but tiny compared to bioenergy. Solar cells on just a few percent of the world's deserts could supply all the energy we need, but they could also be distributed over other "dead" surfaces like rooftops, parking lots, roadsides, etc.

From these people I met, if they were representative, I would
be surprised that they could calculate any energy efficiencies.

I'm an energy system researcher with no connection to Greenpeace, but the research reports they produce are very good. Did you hear about the recent IPCC "scandal" where some highlighted scenarios originated from a Greenpeace study? That wasn't because the IPCC is partisan, but that at least some parts of Greenpeace do impressive work that gets cited in academic studies.

Like I said, they were not the brightest lot on the block. LoL

... naw, too easy.

Why does anyone listen to Greenpeace anymore?

[SirWinston]

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.