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Amazon Pursues More Renewable Energy, Following Google, Apple, And Facebook (fortune.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader writes:
Amazon will open a 100-turbine, 253-megawatt wind farm in Texas by the end of next year -- generating enough energy to power almost 90,000 U.S. homes. Amazon already has wind farms in Indiana, North Carolina, and Ohio (plus a solar farm in Virginia), and 40% of the power for AWS already comes from renewable sources, but Amazon's long-term plan is to raise that to 100%.
But several of the world's largest tech companies are already pursuing their own aggressive renewable energy programs, according to Fortune. Google "has said it's the largest non-utility purchaser of renewable energy in the world. Apple claims that in 2015, 93% of its energy came from renewable sources, and its data centers are already 100% run on renewables (though that claim does rely on carbon trading). Facebook, which also uses Texas wind facilities, is aiming for 50% of its data center power to come from renewables by 2018. Even slightly smaller companies like Salesforce have made big commitments to renewable energy."
Last year for the first time utilities actually bought less than half the power produced by wind farms -- because tech companies, universities, and cities had already locked it down with long-term contracts.
But several of the world's largest tech companies are already pursuing their own aggressive renewable energy programs, according to Fortune. Google "has said it's the largest non-utility purchaser of renewable energy in the world. Apple claims that in 2015, 93% of its energy came from renewable sources, and its data centers are already 100% run on renewables (though that claim does rely on carbon trading). Facebook, which also uses Texas wind facilities, is aiming for 50% of its data center power to come from renewables by 2018. Even slightly smaller companies like Salesforce have made big commitments to renewable energy."
Last year for the first time utilities actually bought less than half the power produced by wind farms -- because tech companies, universities, and cities had already locked it down with long-term contracts.
I love how all these wind farms in Texas count for tech companies DC's that are outside of Texas. Why? Texas is not connected to the national grid, so it's not really going to be used exclusively by Amazon or any tech.
Meanwhile, thousands upon thousands of families in the coal belt live in poverty, jobless, while these greedy a-holes use power that it doesn't even make economical sense to make. That's what our society is coming to folks. And Hillary wants to make all the miners unemployed, because just some isn't sufficient.
Most Americans use too much paper towels and toilet paper. Use cotton towels instead of paper towels. I don't know the solution for TP unless you want to do it Arab style or a Bidet.
Last I checked, wind and solar guarantee exactly zero power coincident with demand, so before getting excited about our dawning renewable utopia, people might want to reflect on how these "contracts" work. Hint: the power produced isn't the power purchased. Worse yet, the reliable generators that can produce power on demand are getting hammered in the marketplace as they are forced off the grid to make way for unreliable sources.
What's happened is that Amazon has come to realize that there is little point in continually pay someone for power when you can just get your own. This is simply a cost cutting measure to grow their AWS profit margin and ensure they can compete with competitive pricing. It's also good PR which they can use as ammunition for marketing. Amazon execs don't give a fuck about the environment, it's all about the money.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
You get an assignment for your college course to find an article about the impacts of Technology on Humanity. The week's class topic: Wind & Solar vs Nuclear.
Homework done. Thank you slashdot.
They just want to kill a bunch of birds to reduce the chances of bird-strike drone-delivery failures.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Delivering by truck is such a dinosaur when you can deliver via wind-powered drones.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
This has more to do with scoring brownie points than it has to do with wanting to use renewable energy
the headline should read. As the parent points out, they are not powering their data centers with renewable energy, just playing a shell game. Google knows it won't work, but soaking up subsidies is rational, and the appearance of looking "green" is a bonus.
Texas is a good place for wind generated power. Trade winds that blow across the Atlantic and Caribbean hit the east coast of Texas all day every day. It is far more reliable that solar or even wind on other places.
Wind producers receive a federal subsidy of about 2.3 cents per kWh.
Oil and gas energy producers receive substantial subsidies as well. Ironically wind and solar would need smaller subsidies if we didn't also subsidize fossil fuels to compete against them.
So it makes sense for them to continue to generate and push the power into an overloaded grid that has no use for it, because they make money doing that.
You could say the exact same thing about the fossil fuel power stations. The only reason they continue to generate and push power into an overloaded grid is because they make money doing that. The only meaningful question is what source of power do we actually want to use. For my money give me the cleaner renewables whenever possible even if there is currently a (rapidly shrinking) price premium. The long term benefits outweigh the short term economic consequences.
I'd take it more seriously if they were to directly power their data centers from renewables 24/7 only instead of some of the funny math of just spending more money to "buy" renewable energy from grid producers at a large enough volume to say they run on 100% renewable
Power is fungible. Whether the electrons generated go into your factory or someone else's at the end of the day has the exact same environmental effect. Worrying about which electrons are being used is idiotic and misses the point. Furthermore the best locations for renewable power are not necessarily the best locations for the end users of that power. It's not practical for Apple to relocated from Cupertino to Texas just because that happens to be a good place for a wind farm.
Because on the back end, they're still dependent in terms of actual consumption on grid baseload generation even if they have a balance sheet that says otherwise.
Who claimed otherwise? They are doing their part to increase the clean energy capacity. They aren't going to solve the whole problem themselves. Eventually (hopefully) enough clean generating capacity will become available that we have to seriously worry about storage and transport on a large scale. We're not there yet.
Further, trying to run full-time off wind+solar would require a substantial investment in energy storage to balance night/still air and storage is where we need the investment.
Power storage will matter for the system once you get beyond a certain generating capacity for solar/wind but for now fossil fuels and nuclear are more than capable of taking up the slack so it's an important but secondary consideration for now. For those who want to use the electricity they generate storage matters but that isn't the goal for companies like Google or Apple.
What's interesting is the seemingly unlikely locations where projects are actually in place or being planned. So much for the argument that profitable wind locations would be rare or hard to reach.
Amazon@ Fowler Ridge Indiana
Amazon@ Paulding County Ohio
Amazon@ Perquimans and Pasquotank Counties, North Carolina
Amazon@ Scurry County, Texas
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
Obligatory post on behalf of all the fossil fuel knee-biters.
Nights and windless days are very much reality.
So because a technology doesn't solve every problem it is useless? Idiotic response. First off, solar technology is terrific for offsetting air conditioning and refrigeration energy demand which is a huge part of our energy consumption, particularly in southern areas. Second, it is exceptionally rare that the wind is calm everywhere all at once and transporting power is a solved problem. Third, batteries are a thing and there already are batteries big enough to supply enough energy for a house to get through a night and available to consumers at fairly reasonable prices..
It is a fact that wind and solar are not economical, else subsidies wouldn't be necessary to get them built.
Lots of new technologies aren't economical at first. Nuclear power was developed out of government research and subsidies. Fossil fuels for reasons that defy all logic continue to receive subsidies to this day. Wind power is already economically competitive with some of the more expensive fossil fuels and the cost of solar is falling fast as technology improves and scale increases. Fossil fuels are only economic because the infrastructure already exists for them and because they don't have to pay the full cost of the pollution they generate. Include the cost of pollution and renewables are EASILY competitive.
Might be we want to rethink, and make decisions based on facts and reality.
We are. And solar and wind power are presently underutilized in our portfolio of energy generation technologies. We cannot continue to burn fossil fuels at the rate we currently are if we want to avoid severe climate catastrophes. For now that means more solar, wind and probably nuclear fission. There is no option without some sort of down side but continuing on our present course with fossil fuels is the worst available option.
When are these companies (and future bandwagoners) going to realize that people seeing you as a "green helper" is not going to drive them to purchase products or use services through you -vs- others? All people want is what's going to please them NOW, and they'll do whatever it takes and rationalize away any environmental help.... Well, until an argument for environmental health comes up and then it suddenly matters again.
This is not trolling or flamebaiting. It's just psychological proven fact.
The companies trying to get tax breaks/more business/their name out there is fairly useless as the companies that are doing it already have the primes (no pun) on their names. The tax breaks are minuscule compared to the equipment cost. The bubble is going to burst eventually, as (at least in the Cincinnati area) power companies HATE those who feed the grid in small amounts because it's unreliable, inconsistent, and difficult to vary depending on circumstances (solar flare grazing, etc).