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Apple: 75% of Our World Wide Power Needs Now Come From Renewable Power Sources
skade88 writes "Apple now owns and runs enough renewable energy power plants that 75% of their world wide power needs come from renewable sources such as wind, solar, geothermal and hydro. From the Apple Blog Post: 'Our investments are paying off. We've already achieved 100 percent renewable energy at all of our data centers, at our facilities in Austin, Elk Grove, Cork, and Munich, and at our Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino. And for all of Apple's corporate facilities worldwide, we're at 75 percent, and we expect that number to grow as the amount of renewable energy available to us increases. We won't stop working until we achieve 100 percent throughout Apple.'"
We mean human souls... Muahahahaha
Oil IS renewable, but takes a long time. Solar power is not renewable. Once the sun has spent its fuel there can be no more.
That's why Apple products are so expensive!
PS: I wonder how renewable the energy burned to drive the truck that deliver products to their retail stores is.
So you think it's OK for Apple to say they are a green company using renewable energy as long as they don't include anything that is connected with making apple products. It's clear that apple will try and add marketing fluff about being green when promoting their products and how by buying their stuff you are helping the environment, yet they will conveniently forget to mention that this does not extend to the actual manufacturing of their stuff.
Did they indeed ignore it? I was assuming manufacturing is part of their power needs. Do you have a link showing it's excluded?
Sure: the one from the article.
And for all of Appleâ(TM)s corporate facilities worldwide, weâ(TM)re at 75 percent
The 75% figure doesn't include manufacturing, or Apple stores, or energy costs used shipping iDevices from China. It only refers to "corporate facilities," whatever that means.
It's fairly clear that it doesn't include manufacturing - which is contracted out anyway, remember, so it's not like Apple owns any factories - and it doesn't include retail. And since we're only talking buildings, it clearly doesn't cover energy spent shipping from China, let alone to Apple stores.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
No one did that. The act of moving to more renewable power is laudable. The act of lying about it is reprehensible.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Don't blame Apple for the submitter's terrible headline. What Apple actually claims is on their website, and they have a clear breakdown of what they view their footprint to be is here:
http://www.apple.com/environment/our-footprint/
(Broken down b/c nobody actually RTFA)
61% Manufacturing
5% Transportation
30% Product Use
2% Recycling
2% Facilities
"Twenty percent comes from the energy generated by the white-hot hatred of Slashdot users!"
Dark Reflection
The slave labour allegations are bullshit. Ref: The lies of Mike Daisey.
Of course ANY company subcontracting manufacture to China and various other Asian countries is in danger of the subcontracting companies using child labour or sweatshops. And the majority of consumer electronics are manufactured there.
However Apple does more than any of the other companies to ensure this doesn't happen with the companies that they subcontract to.
The continued repeating of these allegations as if Apple were choosing to use child labour is the lowest form of filthy lie, from the dregs of the slashdot membership. To use a serious issue like child labour in order to further their shilling for Android or OSS is the lowest of the low.
It's already clear that they conveniently left out all manufacturing/storage facilities, as if subcontracting made them not responsible. And of course, they don't use conflict minerals, their workers work 8-hour shifts in comfy offices ... you get the idea.
They left it out because those places are beyond their control. I suppose Apple could go to another contract manufacturer, maybe one that Dell or HP uses. Oh wait, it's the same one. There are not a lot of choices when it comes to this kind of manufacturing. Finding one that is green is not likely.
Suppose you want to go green. You can do all you can use renewable energy at your home. What about your work place? Is your company green? What about the facilities they rent? What about they supermarket you use, the dry cleaners, etc? Do you have kids and is their school green? Is your car/bus/subway green? Unless you own 100% of every aspect of your life that uses energy, you have to accept that some places will use fossil fuels as energy.
Apple is converting the facilities that they control as much as they can. You can criticize them for things out of their control or you can applaud them for doing what they can.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Much like the term 'All-Natural', Renewable doesn't mean much.
The term causes the mind to think of things like 'Solar, Wind, Water, Geothermal', but the reality is that Renewable also means: "BioDiesel, Wood, Ethanol, Methane"
My point is, that there are many polluting, but renewable sources. I don't mean to imply that making sure our energy supply is sustainable is a bad thing, not at all, but just a reminder to keep an eye out for the marketing angle companies use when they use the term 'Renewable'.
People hear 'clean, green, healthy, responsible' when a company says they are renewable, but the honest truth is that a company could be powered by 100% Renewable Sources by burning pine trees in a 100 year old 30% efficiency furnace.
A previous company of mine recently converted their entire energy supply to renewable sources, generation was performed on site. The source was sawdust from the local saw mills. (However, it was actually a good move, because their system was actually a new high efficiency process they wanted to showcase, and by purchasing from the local sawmills, they helped support the community in a very direct fashion)
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
No one did that. The act of moving to more renewable power is laudable. The act of lying about it is reprehensible.
Actually just about everyone in this thread did that, and they lauded nothing. Typical of the haters who hate no matter what. There was no lie. Their power is from renewable. They are not claiming that everything in their supply chain (including the mining of rare earth metals) is from renewables.
Slashdotters have been infected for about 6 years now with some weird vocal Google lifestyle. As soon as the iPhone came out, Apple was put up on high like the underdog had finally won. Slashdotters rejoiced that Apple was finally ahead of Microsoft in a big way. David had beat Goliath.
A year later when the first Android phone came out, it caused a great schism.
I think it's really sad that people from both sides of the issue couldn't be more objective.
But ultimately, I think that this has been a clash of culture that until now has been reasonably aligned...
Open source is Freedom of software, not necessarily free software. This has been beat into the first generation of Slashdotters. However, Google has come in and consistently pushed their own solutions to be "Free with an asterix" Google dependency. Many people find google's commitment to free software noble, but they are slowly tying themselves to Google's interests. There is a great distinction between GNU and Google for instance on the way software is produced.
People who find themselves immersed in google's technologies start to have their own self protection response when Google's interests are challenged.
"How can Google be bad? They give me so much. I can't imagine doing my daily work without Google."
This is NOT the same as the traditional Open source culture. Open source culture teaches you to be self reliant, independent and if you don't like the way code behaves change it. Giveback to society, but don't wait for society to fix your problems. Does google give you the ability to do this for ANY of their products and services?
Enter Apple. Apple is a for profit commercial company. You pay up front for what you want. You vote with your dollars. There's no sleaze, no slime. The restrictions are clear, the capabilities are clear. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Yet they are also an open source contributor and have long been one of the center points for FreeBSD development. ( Consider the irony that Apple's Webkit is now the basis for almost all web browsers )
They are NOT the doting father... they are not the place to go to for freeloading. They are quite clear of what they do and don't do. If you want something, look around a vendor may have a solution that fits what you want, or write your own software and give back to the community.
Not the same model as open source, but I argue, a compatible one that is in the best interest of consumer freedom.
The Google crowd doesn't like this. They'd rather wait for what "entitled" freebie they should get, and they get annoyed that Apple never gives it to them.
So when Android came out, and Apple "disagreed" with how it was designed ( I say this simply to try and avoid a rant of who is right and wrong here... go with me on this) , suddenly Apple is the ultimate bad guy. To the Google crowd, Apple is threatening to take away your lifestyle. Only it's not your lifestyle. It's not what Slashdot was founded on. It's GOOGLE's Life style.
One should also take into account the useful life of the products they manufacture, with sealed-in batteries and throw-away design, along with their own marketing effort to out-fashion their own devices after only two years.
Using terajoules of the cleanest energy to produce stuff that will end up in the trash faster than you can say "planned obsolescence" is still waste.
I'll applaud when they reverse the flow and encourage people to keep their computers longer through cheap support plans and openness.
-- Home is where you eat your heart out.
There was no lie. Their power is from renewable.
I'll believe that when they stop selling "Apple" computers and start selling OSX for "Foxconn" computers. Until then, it's all a load of bullshit, since the work they've contracted isn't being done with renewable power.
So, like I said, you're just a hater. All their power needs for their operations is what the article is about. Not all the power used by all subcontractors in the manufacturing chain back to when the stuff was dust. Haters cannot acknowledge anything good about Apple. If Tim Cook said he wiped his ass north to south, you'd be shouting it should be south to north.
Really though, what do they mean? I did not see where they define what they consider renewable.
Apple's definition of renewable is Solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.