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Renewable Energy Saves Fortune 100 Companies $1.1B Annually
Lucas123 writes: A new report authored by several environmental groups say data shows more than half of Fortune 100 companies collectively saved more than $1.1B annually by reducing carbon emissions and rolling out renewable energy projects. According to the report, 43% of Fortune 500 companies, or 215 in all, have also set targets in one of three categories: greenhouse gas reduction, energy efficiency and renewable energy. When narrowed to just the Fortune 100, 60% of the companies have set the same clean energy goals. Some of the companies leading the industry in annual clean energy savings include UPS ($200M), Cisco ($151M), PepsiCo ($121M) and United Continental ($104M).
How much of that "savings" is tax breaks/subsidies?
If you tell that to republicans there may be spontaneous mouth foaming.
So, companies saved $1.1 Billion. However, this article fails to state exactly how. In fact, if you look carefully, the article couldn't have been better designed to throw down some numbers while completely avoiding actual data.
Example:
IMPLEMENT CLEAN ENERGY SAVE $1BILLION.
IMPLEMENT (COST $5 billion) CLEAN ENERGY SAVE (Don't pay for) $1 BILLION in energy costs!
Or even worse:
IMPLEMENT (COST $5 billion) CLEAN ENERGY GET $1BILLION TAX BREAK!
I think the article writer could have done a much better job clearly outlining how what was saved where versus cost. And if that level of detail still fit the narrative of clean energy = savings despite the substantial additional cost of actual said clean energy per KW/hr, good. I want to see that.
And if the facts don't fit the narrative....and a careful dance was choreographed around said facts so that the narrative would be satisfied....well, thats called lying amongst honest folks who care about actual results.
Meanwhile, people without the ability to harvest energy from the sun and reap the tax benefits are getting socked with energy bills doubling every 5-7 years. (My average $500+/mo energy bills are why I'm getting solar installed this month!)
These companies would not stay in business for long if it wasn't saving them more than it was costing them. Put the tinfoil hat away.
Germany doesn't sell daytime power "at a loss". Power at night on the European grid doesn't sell for high prices. Show some citations, ye of eyebrow raising claims.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Jebus do you people not understand the word "save"? In your example you have spent $80K. Aside from that some very effective measures don't even need capital expenditure, for example, the giant multi-national I work for has saved millions by implementing simple things such as getting people to turn their desktop off before going home, teleconferencing in preference to flying, etc. When you have 180K employees these two simple measures alone will add up to millions in savings.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Not from "reducing carbon emissions and rolling out renewable energy projects."
They saved money by increasing energy efficiency.
And you can bet that a huge chunk of that is just replacing incandescent bulbs with LEDs. These are HUGE companies with many, many employees. A savings of $1.1 billion is relatively tiny overall...
Reducing the amount of energy (which costs money) you pay for saves you money (which you were previously paying for that energy).
Give these chief executives a huge bonus!
Intel builds a new chip-making plant once every decade approximately because they cost double digit billions of dollars. They don't pay off for years and years but smart corporations play the long game. A lot of green technologies pay for themselves in 2-10 years and after that they turn into magical free money machines. So logically corporations that are smart implement them.
Some of the companies leading the industry in annual clean energy savings include UPS ($200M), Cisco ($151M), PepsiCo ($121M) and United Continental ($104M).
Annual Revenues:
UPS: 55.4 billion
Cisco: 48.6 billion
PepsiCo: 66.4 billion
United Continental: 38.3 billion
United Continental only posted 571 million in profits last year, so yes, those savings definitely helped.
The others? Cisco: 9.9 billion; PepsiCo: $6.7 billion, UPS: $4.3 billion-- the savings reported are akin to rounding errors. It's not all that persuasive.
So if I spend 80k on a new car to save 1k a year in energy costs, is this a win too?
That depends on the difference in price between a non-energy saving car you might have bought and the energy saving car you might have bought. Same think with renewable energy. If you need some new source of energy to replace an old source that's worn out what's the cost difference between your various options vs. what you save in production costs after it's installed.
wtf is wrong with you people?
its turns out that making modest cuts in energy consumption isn't that painful, saves some money,
and may have longer term benefits
maybe I can understand the 'saving the purple spotted toad is costing jobs damn liberals' attitude, but
you guys have to piss on this? turning off the lights at night?
god fucking forbid we didn't waste as much energy as possible. imagonna leave my truck running all night
just to show i'm a true patriot
assholes
These companies would be more than willing to throw money away if they can plaster "We're Green" on all their prospectus papers and advertisements.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It is nice to see an upside. A lot of companies are not disclosing the down side risk from climate change to investors though. https://mninews.marketnews.com...
To bat shit crazy levels. Insted of the people saying well they want that item worse than i do. No they say can we play with the rabbits after we pay 20 fucking bucks for a small package of hamburger derr ok here you are.
11 million times 100 = 1.1 billion.
So the headline should be, "Renewable Energy Savings By Fortune 100 Doesn't Even Cover CEO's Salary"
Reducing carbon emissions does not save anyone money. Reducing the amount, or changing the type, of energy consumed does.
If rooftop solar pays for itself over a certain number of years, then apparently solar is cheaper in the long run than the electricity generation mix (coal, natgas, nuclear, hydro, ...). But large-scale solar generation is apparently more expensive than the average, or utilities would be providing more solar for the cost benefits. So I assume that rooftop solar only pays for itself over a number of years because of subsidies.
Which begs the question: if government wants to subsidize solar, why prioritize piecemeal rooftop solar over large and efficient projects?
Just repeating the word 'carbon' over and over doesn't make it a 'greenhouse gas', since the Earth's temperature is controlled by the SUN, and nothing else.
Why is Slashdot constantly pushing catastrophic man-made global warming bullshit on us? (Normally under the oh so convenient misnomer 'climate change'.)
www.climatedepot.com
After the Arab oil embargo, the US funded a program for business education on energy conservation in industrial plants. It was a six month course with a lot of solid material. Applying this to the processes in the chemical plant where I was working saved a ton of money -- well beyond the costs of implementation. And in general the manufacturing processes ran better. But changes like this are not a one time fix but an attitude, much like cyber security. The abandonment of small cars and rush into SUVs was symptomatic of a collective 'we dont need to care anymore...' attitude. So from where I sit this just looks like a rediscovery of the lessons of the past (so many mistakes...). Industry is different from residential -- in the later good design is probably more important than ongoing management. In the former, from my experience, production requires active management to maintain that balance between costs and output. Given the costs of most RE gear, my bet is that the real savings are in energy management and not covering the roof with solar panels or the parking lot with wind turbines. Same old story -- maybe it will persist better this time.
Too bad that's not what they're doing, as evidenced by TFA. And no company is going to spend that much money for a passive advertisement that doesn't even really impact consumer opinion much.