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Amazon Still Lags Behind Apple, Google in Greenpeace Renewable Energy Report (greenpeace.org)
Amazon's cloud-computing unit says that one day it will rely solely on renewable power. But Greenpeace reports that a ramp-up in data-center construction in Virginia, where electricity comes mostly from coal and nuclear plants, makes that goal elusive. From the report: Apple, Google, Facebook, and newcomer Switch are taking some of the greatest strides towards 100% renewable energy, while companies such as Netflix, Amazon Web Services, and Samsung are lagging. The findings in Greenpeace USA's report outlines the energy footprints of large data center operators and nearly 70 of the most popular websites and applications. "Amazon continues to talk a good game on renewables but is keeping its customers in the dark on its energy decisions. This is concerning, particularly as Amazon expands into markets served by dirty energy," said Greenpeace USA Senior IT Analyst, Gary Cook. "Like Apple, Facebook, and Google, Netflix is one of the biggest drivers of the online world and has a critical say in how it is powered. Netflix must embrace the responsibility to make sure its growth is powered by renewables, not fossil fuels and it must show its leadership here," continued Cook.
Companies care about making money
That's correct for big public companies contolled by multiple small shareholders, but companies that have very few big shareholders like amazon or google can do whatever they want as long as it can be sort of justified. Its simple: companies ruled by multiple small shareholders are ruled by the greed of the shareholders, because usually the shareholders want to make more money e.g. because they are pension funds or the shareholders want to sell off their shares at a higher price. But companies ruled by single people made those people very very rich. They are far more relaxed about this, because even if they have 34 billion instead of 35, they still got more money they can ever spend in their life. They "won" the economic game. So they can focus on making the world better (like being green) or some expensive hobby (like sending rockets to space).
What I care about is whether their service is efficient and affordable. Why again do I care about where they get their energy from?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Did you just explain, why Oligarchy is better than Democracy?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Its simple: companies ruled by multiple small shareholders are ruled by the greed of the shareholders, because usually the shareholders want to make more money e.g. because they are pension funds or the shareholders want to sell off their shares at a higher price.
Worrying about your pension is greed?
And geothermal, where possible.
Gary realized this and hopes that these stories will cause enough negative PR that they will be forced to go green.
I'm not sure outside the greens echo chamber that many people or companies care about this - at least to the point where they want to spend more money or lose reliability. For example, I don't know many people or businesses that will read this story and say "well fuck you Amazon, I am moving to Google or Switch (whoever they are) for all my cloud needs."
Or how many will say "now that I read this, I am leaving Netflix and going back to TimeWarner".
But, these CEO's are all in the same echo chamber so a call out like this might matter. It's not something most normal folks care about enough to make a deciding factor on whom to do business with.
I'm not sure Amazon is allowed to build their own nuclear power plants ;)
Companies care about making money, and they only care about being green if the PR and money saved on penalties outweighs the money lost being green.
You are presuming that being green and saving money are mutually exclusive. This is untrue as a general proposition. In actual fact using renewable energy sources and eliminating waste streams actually can save considerable sums of money. Companies locate data centers in places where hydro power is cheap and plentiful. Putting solar panels on the roof can save substantial sums by leveling energy costs for cooling a data center. Using green sources of energy can save money on pollution mitigation. And yes there is a PR value to it as well. Green does not inherently equal expensive and in actual fact it can be more cost effective. It's the companies that don't grasp this fact that are actually often wasting money.
Look, a solar panel never makes in it's usable life the amount of energy it takes to produce
That hasn't been true for several years now. By 2020 it's estimated that solar panels will pay back all the energy they've ever taken to manufacture all of them.
the same with wind power.
Wrong again. Did you actually bother to research any of this? 20 Seconds on Google would have corrected your false assertions.
A coal plant returns the power it took to build with all parts in less than a month.
At the cost of dumping massive amounts of pollutants (including CO2) into the atmosphere for decades. When coal actually has to pay for the full energy (and financial) cost of mitigating the pollution it costs then you might have a fair comparison.
Look, a solar panel never makes in it's usable life the amount of energy it takes to produce, the same with wind power. Do the math with cost of production and construction. It NEVER works.
The internet disagrees with you. On both points.
Do you have links or other supporting information you can cite?
If not, consider changing your position.
Spreading these sorts of lies will only hurt our efforts to avoid a real and imminent crisis.
Greenpeace has lost all credibility. They are out for their own aggrandizement, and their primary goal is to perpetuate themselves. If they actually have any positive effect on environmental or conservation causes, it is entirely by accident.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Greenpeace are not interested in ecological conservation. They are interested in pushing an anti-science agenda.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Nobody cares.
Signed,
The sane people of the world
Do you have ESP?
hat I care about is whether their service is efficient and affordable. Why again do I care about where they get their energy from?
Presumably because you don't like the negative effects of living in a place with polluted air and water. Have you ever been in a city with serious smog problems? I have. It's not pleasant. I won't speak for you but personally I prefer to breathe clean air. Furthermore by sourcing their energy smartly they can actually save money thus making their service more efficient and affordable.
I certainly don't....I can't image there is a large majority that do, nor make buying decisions based upon a company's green-ness.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
You think you have a say in how your pension is invested?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
I can almost see it now at next year's re:Invent...
And that's why we're proud to present Amazon's new product offering, Amazon CloudIsotope
Shouldn't you be on Twitter Mr. President-Elect?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Who the hell cares what greenpeace says ? I do care about nature but i certainly pay no attention to what greenpeace says. And hippies in general.
They aren't a scientific institution, they are a lobby group for simpletons who cannot abide by the conclusions of scientists when they differ from their religious preconceptions. They are rather anti-science. They fish arguments from fringe individuals and see most scientists or engineers or physicians as suspects and in collusion with some vague plot from the industry they consider a priori as evil.
I liked them when they were defending the whales but nothing more.
Actually, finding out what to do to favour responsible behaviour in the industry and what to buy is extremely complicated. You need a lot of input from a lot of different kind of good experts. And the conclusions are not always intuitive.
Like when i read that depending on where you live driving an electric car pollutes more than driving a diesel. Or in some places installing solar panels isn't green because of the configuration of the electric grid. The answers are never simple.
That is why we need robust institutions with their own experts. As independent as possible.
Most people are tired of the fact that almost every year in the last 20 has been significantly above average, and there's no indication that that's going to change unless we start fixing out damage. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc... So yeah, a lot of us care, and that caring adjusts our buying decisions. Power draw is one of the biggest considerations when buying new stuff, for me.
Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
People still take the uneducated eco-terrorists seriously? I thought they lost all their credibility years ago.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Did you read the post I responded to?
CO2 is -not- a pollutant.
CO2 most certainly is a pollutant in the quantities we are releasing it into the atmosphere. Anything can be a pollutant when it is in a place that screws up an ecosystem and CO2 is no exception. We are taking billions of tons of carbon that has been sequestered for millions of years and releasing it very rapidly into an ecosystem that has not evolved to handle it. That is a pollutant by any reasonable definition of the term.
That said, even if we pretend (wrongly) that C02 isn't a pollutant, there is plenty of other toxic crap coming out of those smoke stacks that is not being controlled or paid for.
By all means, cover the datacenter roof with solar panels to buy down the cost of power in the daytime. But keep it connected to the grid for the baseload reliability a dense cube of servers needs.
Amazon lags in green tech! Save the Amazon rainforests!
Make up your fucking mind.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Why does anyone care what Greenpeace thinks?
Scrolled toooooooo far for this.
Greenpeace was a cause to support. Donating time and/or money to Greenpeace was The Right Thing To Do for a very long time.
Until I figured out that Greenpeace only follows the rules when it's convenient for them. They don't care about trespassing, destroying property or even intimidation. They expect corporations to follow court orders when they win another frivolous lawsuit when they release the nearly extinct blue-white bearded three-legged rabbit somewhere on a construction site, but when that same court orders them to halt their protests, they continue.
Absolutely horrible organization. And yes, I know I will be modded down for writing this, but freedom of speech etc.
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
While Apple, Google and Amazon all have electronic services delivery, Amazon is, by far, the largest in terms of physical plant for their vast goods-shipping network.
While yes, Apple and Google do ship, they simply don't have the sheer scope of what Amazon is dealing in.
So yeah, Amazon's going to come in behind those two.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Most (pension) funds only care about profits, and nothing else. This fulfills the definition of greed. Doesn't mean that I don't understand you or I would do it differently.
Well, while I don't mind if companies and people do things to try to prevent global warming, be green, etc....I don't go out of my way to do it, nor do I want to be inconvenienced or pay more $$ for it.
I mean, my life is short, and I don't wanna have my comforts impinged upon unnecessarily.
By the time the world gets too warm or something catastrophic comes of it...I'll be LONG dead and buried in the ground, so, what do I care?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It directly affects some business decisions. For example, in the industry I work in, water, there are government mandates for the water companies to be environmentally responsible. Because of that they factor sustainability into their bidding processes, so if you want to sell them products it helps if you can say your cloud servers are using 70% renewable energy and your office reduced its paper use by 8% last year.
Since Amazon's data centers apparently suck at using renewable energy and not polluting the environment, it's something to consider when evaluating cloud services.
Also, since renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuel energy, they should really be covering every square metre of rooftop they own with solar and throwing up some wind turbines anyway.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
That's why the original leader/founder left.
Are you talking about Bob Hunter? He left when died of prostate cancer in 2005. Possibly you mean David McTaggart? He left when he died in 2001 of a car accident. Dorothy and Irving Stowe are also both dead and supported Greenpeace until their dying days. Or do you mean this guy?
This is fake and greenwashing. Google claims it's carbon-free only because they bought enough carbon credits to do so. That's not what being green really means and it's disappointing these companies feel the need to defraud the public.
Kriston
a small majority, or even a minority, is more then sufficient to effect change.
If you believe change requires a majority, then you are no student of history.
I hope not, because this change would be bad. I want inexpensive products - that's my standard of living. "Renewable" is for hippies.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Every generation cares about hippie nonsense when they're young. Then they get a job, get a house, start a family, and discover what's actually important in life. This is an ongoing process called "maturity".
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The primary point by which cloud services are evaluated by government agencies is "does the security meet auditing requirements". That, followed by cost, are important; the rest is negotiable. Amazon is good at that.
Also, since renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuel energy, they should really be covering every square metre of rooftop they own with solar and throwing up some wind turbines anyway.
So you claim. Amazon's obsessed with reducing operational expenses (and goes crazy with capital expenses), so I'm sure they're doing whatever is actually cheaper.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Anti-nuclear = pro AGW. Anti GMO = pro starvation. Greenpeace have zero credibility. Sorry.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
You think you have a say in how your pension is invested?
If you're only talking about traditional pension(s), then no. But with my 401k, I have many options
Just another day in Paradise
If Amazon was serious about their centralized transaction and distribution model, their commitment to moving products from manufacture to seller over ever increasing distances, their commitment to deep processing power, with its necessity for an energy-rich future...
They would get behind Thorium and LFTR.
And let other silly, deluded corporate hobbyists fund the low-yield weather-intermittent countless points of failure crap.
__
"DID SOMEONE SAY THORIUM?" TIME ONCE AGAIN FOR
CONFESSIONS OF A SLASHDOT ENERGY AND LFTR FANBOI
Updated for 2017! All original unless noted! Browse! Engage! Plagiarize!
This letter of mine has been in Donald Trump's possession since May 2, 2016 . If you read it you may discover why I considered Trump the only candidate worthy of such a message. In his pronouncement to pursue energy self-sufficiency in general and consider nuclear an essential part of the mix, there is hope. The others offer nothing but more years of bad road and an obscenely stupid fixation on base load irredeemables (wind and solar). Trump is literally the only one with the courage to stand up to the tripe.
In 2013 I reached out to Senator Inhofe to propose an energy path for Oklahoma and the country.
Also in 2013 I reached out directly to Halliburton Corporate with a very specific idea that just might have laid groundwork for their secure long-term future. At the time their stock was climbing towards $70 and they probably thought they didn't have a care in the world. Not so good now. Not a glimmer from this one either. I had high hopes for it.
Mentioned in these letters is Faulkner's 2005 paper on Electric (HVDC) pipelines, and the two hour Thorium Remix 2011 video presentation (time index below).
It's fun to discuss nuclear energy on Slashdot ... It's time for Elmo to Grow Up!... A brief history of nuclear energy fear in these United States... You should fear everything besides nuclear energy... Solar drives California towards cannibalism, or your money back... There's a fire, and people pushing intermittent sources are blocking the exits... Hiding wonders of the modern world from the kids...Some energy priorities... 2016: The Year in energy... Meet the folks of TBA, a city willing to store spent nuclear fuel... Nothing is as patriotic as mining... A move to LFTR may be the only way to preserve modern society in the face of disaster (volcanism, Maunder minimum)... Can the grid 'black-start' after a disaster?... Sometimes you just have to point things
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>