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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.
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.
There are one or two data centers in Texas...
Texas is not connected to the national grid, so it's not really going to be used exclusively by Amazon or any tech.
Who cares? It is all fungible. CO2 avoided anywhere helps everywhere. It is all a silly PR stunt, so it is silly to complain that it isn't slightly less silly in some meaningless way.
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
Sorry, but if you want to blame somebody for what our society "is coming to", then you better first look in the mirror, and then turn around and look behind you: You'll see fat cats like Drumpf standing there.
Last I checked, wind and solar guarantee exactly zero power coincident with demand.
Check again; solar is follows the morning demand curve pretty closely and can be better matched to demand in some markets by facing panels westward.
Some places have very reliable winds and pretty good forecasting, which has gotten much better in the past several years.
So your "zero power coincident" is a gross exaggeration.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Also, "demand" is not fixed. With variable pricing, consumers and companies can be incentivized to use power when it is cheap, and conserve when it is not. Many appliances, such as dishwashers, clothes washers, and dryers, have a delay feature. ACs and refrigerators can be pre-chill when power is cheap, and idle their compressors when prices spike.
My city (San Jose, California) has smart meters, and my AC will automatically shutdown if there is a power shortage. I get discounted power at other times for allowing the power company to install the cutoff switch.
My wife has a Tesla, and it is preprogrammed to start charging at 2:30am, when power is cheapest. As electric cars are more widely adopted, they can act like a sponge to soak up surplus power whenever it is available. There are also proposals to have idle electric cars feed power back to the grid during shortages.
How do you dump electricity you don't need?
Into a pump for underground compressed air for later use, into a pump to push water uphill for later use, into a resistive load, i.e. a heating element in a large body of water, into some large flywheels, or in the last resort, "feather the props".
Obviously, options 1-3 above add to cost, and option 4 is somewhat wasteful, but it's not a technical problem.
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
So... are you guys for free markets or not.. it's so hard to tell because your position changes with the direction of the breeze.
That's not really dumping it. That's converting it to potential energy. The OP was implying that it gets dumped, as in wasted. Which I don't understand. Because if you don't use electricity, it doesn't really get generated in the first place.
How do you dump electricity you don't need?
Sell it at a discount to people that need to charge their electric cars.
Often the utilities are forced to purchase electricity that they don't need and have to dump.
That may happen in Oregon, but not in Texas. In Texas electricity is priced in spot markets and updated many times per day. Texas utilities are not compelled to pay a fixed price, and occasionally the spot price even goes negative. Of course, the wind turbine operators still make money because of federal subsidies, but you can't blame that on Texas.
Because if you don't use electricity, it doesn't really get generated in the first place.
Yes, it does get generated. Excess power can be dumped to the grid at a negative price of about -1 cent per kWh. At that price, someone will take it off your hands. So then why would you generate it and lose money? Answer: Subsidies. Wind producers receive a federal subsidy of about 2.3 cents per kWh. 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.
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.
And while wind companies are doing that, what are the coal/gas/oil plants doing? The rational move for them is to not generate once the price of electricity drops below the price of whichever fossil fuel they use, which means less CO2 is produced. It may not be an exact "every watt of wind power generated means one watt equivalent less CO2" but it's still reducing CO2 emissions.
Giant tesla coils, arching into the night?
Blah, no one ever got superpowers from a wind turbine accident!
And while wind companies are doing that, what are the coal/gas/oil plants doing?
Gas turbines shutdown.
Coal continues to generate, because the latency is too long to be worth shutting them down for a price dip only lasting an hour or two.
Nobody uses oil for grid connected power generation.
Nobody uses oil for grid connected power generation.
In the US? Well, maybe not significantly, but it's a big factor for Hawaii.
Given that that state is ripe for Wind and Solar, they really need to buckle down and implement a solution.
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.
The data center uses power from whatever generation facility is closest to it. Off-site renewable source serve to offset that power usage.
Electricity is a commodity - there's no difference to the end user what source generated the exact electricity they're using at any given moment. It's about offsetting usage.
Same thing happens to a different extent to homes with solar panels on their rooftops. At least in states that allow for net metering, homes have oversized installations, which generate far more power at peak than the house will actually use. That power is pumped back out into the grid and goes to the nearest neighbors, with the solar owner getting credit for that power, allowing their daytime production to be used to offset their evening usage.
So, Amazon when creates a wind farm in Texas - even if that power isn't used directly by their facilities, it does still have the same exact effect on reducing CO2 generation, by effectively offsetting their CO2 production by supplying clean energy elsewhere.
This has more to do with scoring brownie points than it has to do with wanting to use renewable energy
No. Its about pumping less crud into the atmosphere and having fewer holes in the ground to pump different crud into.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
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)
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.
Nobody uses oil for grid connected power generation.
They absolutely do. The power plant in my East Coast town alternates between bunker C oil and natural gas, depending on price.
The data center uses power from whatever generation facility is closest to it. Off-site renewable source serve to offset that power usage.
Electricity is a commodity - there's no difference to the end user what source generated the exact electricity they're using at any given moment. It's about offsetting usage.
Same thing happens to a different extent to homes with solar panels on their rooftops. At least in states that allow for net metering, homes have oversized installations, which generate far more power at peak than the house will actually use. That power is pumped back out into the grid and goes to the nearest neighbors, with the solar owner getting credit for that power, allowing their daytime production to be used to offset their evening usage.
So, Amazon when creates a wind farm in Texas - even if that power isn't used directly by their facilities, it does still have the same exact effect on reducing CO2 generation, by effectively offsetting their CO2 production by supplying clean energy elsewhere.
Question (you're smart and I'm not talking down to you; really looking for your wisdom, literally): what happens if we maximize solar and wind for power conversion? Note, I didn't say generation; I said conversion. A field with wind turbines cuts down on the kinetic energy outflow from the area; in solar conversion, the excitation of electrons reduces the emitted heat to the atmosphere from the Sun's contact with the ground (ground being surface things, not literally all ground; mountains, trees, etc). It also emits a lot of IR radiation due to the heating of the material in the panel, which is what happens every day and night - incoming radiation, (reflection or conversion), output (converted energy or emission back into space). That affects something that life relies on - weather. Weather is not what I'm focusing on, it's just one of the many things that is affected by solar radiation and kinetic energy from pressure differentials. The argument comes into play - what happens if we capture the kinetic energy and radiation on a global scale? Arguments will say the potential energy from wind will be deflected by pressure differential and blow more somewhere else. Solar energy captures radiation that normally either heats the surface or reflects back to the lower-upper layers of the atmosphere where it causes excitation of molecules (well, electrons, but you get the concept overall) for protection from dangerous radiation and ALSO helps to capture heat even more. We're going to be changing the weather patterns on the planet. If we don't, we'll declare that we've failed because global warming is continuing. If we do, we'll declare we've failed because the weather is changing and blame it on ourselves (whether we are part or not), and cite global warming as the cause.
Follow the rock history. Global warming happens in cycles with or without us, and for us to believe that our conversion methods make US the cause of an event is borderline absurd. It's going to happen with or without us. To use "clean energy", we're capturing incoming and reflected, as well as atmospheric and underground kinetic energy (geothermal). Capture the waves, and we're altering the flow of energy in the ocean. Capture water in falls, alter the effects, amount, and direction of erosion.
Humans need to understand that we're part of the equation, which makes us observe when we see changes and take credit for the cause when we can connect one thing we do to an effect. We have a very high belief that we're a superpower that can take control of energy and be responsible for the outcomes. We fail to remember that we're animals, and as such we take in energy, convert it, store it sometimes, and emit it in another form or the same form later (call it leaving a mess). To stop leaving a mess, we have to stop converting in a way that leads to a mess. To stop converting in a way that leads to a mess, we have to change a system which we can't change but are just learning how t
Sorry, but if you want to blame somebody for what our society "is coming to", then you better first look in the mirror, and then turn around and look behind you: You'll see fat cats like Drumpf standing there.
I thought it was just going to end with "fat cats". They contribute, too. Literally.
So... are you guys for free markets or not.. it's so hard to tell because your position changes with the direction of the breeze.
That's the problem, psychologically. It's about "ME" and "NOW". It's about people getting what they want, but choosing when to care or not care about their effect, given what they get now as a benefit.
Not to be offtopic, but I have a family member that believes that recycling is the only way to go. I said, "[name], you understand that recycling recycles recyclable materials, but requires a lot of energy to be used in the process, right?"
Ok, so I answer with, "Right. So if you believe we're contributing to global warming AND long-term destruction of the happy environment around us, you recycle. You're contributing to, your belief of the cause of global warming, for the energy used in the process."
She says, "Well, it's better to do something rather than nothing."
I stared blankly until she stomped a foot and screamed, "WHAT?"
No. I'm talking in the physics sense. A generator with no load on it produces voltage but no current. It produces electricity, but it doesn't go anywhere. The only way you can physically dump excess electricity is by using it to do work. Which makes it not excess by definition.
I only read up until it said "Read the rest of this comment", and even then, I mostly just skimmed.
Either way, the amount of land area that needs to be utilized to by solar to provide enough energy for everyone, everywhere was tiny. I mean, TINY. Like, here is a link (disclaimer, I'm not a scientist, just a believer and fan):
http://www.techinsider.io/map-...
So... Do we think that much solar is going to have a tremendous effect on our ecosystems? Especially considering that it could be much more spread out than even that? Especially in comparison to the alternative of continuing to burn coal 24 hours a day until, what, we run out and have to go with solar anyways? Or should we dam the worlds rivers in order to generate hydro?
I'll agree that in a sense, everything is about trade-offs, there's no panaceas. But if you're going to argue that the long term negative effects of solar are anywhere even close to comparable to the mining, transportation and burning of coal, well, would you please provide something peer-reviewed that lays out the case for that?
Didn't get a penny to post that. I've been reading how people get paid to post on Slashdot ever since it was Bill Gates who was supposedly paying Windows people to bash Linux, and have yet to receive even a single offer for my time. Pity me.
If you can't read and think about my information and thoughts, why should I read yours? I already know what your position is. I'd be wasting my time, too.