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Amazon Battles Google for Renewable Energy Crown (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the good-fights dept.

Readers share a report: Even in the age of coal enthusiast President Donald Trump, clean-energy developers are finding plenty of interest in wind and solar power from businesses with sustainability targets, especially technology companies. That was on display in a video tweeted Thursday by Amazon.com Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, as he christened the 253-megawatt Amazon Wind Farm Texas in Scurry County. Amazon has bought more than 1.22 gigawatts of output to date from U.S. clean-energy projects, second only to Alphabet's Google, with 1.85 gigawatts. Corporations have agreed to buy 1.9 gigawatts of clean power in the U.S. this year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, and are on pace to match the 2.6 gigawatts signed last year.

1 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Per-capita emissions is the wrong measure! by fred6666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That's totally incorrect. You're only focusing on emissions (a byproduct of consumption), without considering utility. You aren't considering what was achieved using the energy obtained by each unit of per-capita greenhouse gas emission!

    It's a feature, not a bug.
    Even if we double the utility (GDP, GNP, whatever) of the planet, we can't double our CO2 emissions.

    I would also point out that if we double the population of the planet, we can't double our CO2 emissions and this is also true. So the CO2 per capita metric is only valid as long as the population of the planet remains the same. When the population increase, the CO2 per capita of all countries should be reduced too, but you get the idea.

    Now, rich countries with high GDP per capita should be free to buy emissions credit from poorer countries emitting a lot less per capita. Let's let the market decide what is the most efficient way to use CO2. But we can't let the market decide what level of CO2 is sustainable for the planet.

    You stop prematurely, and thus totally miss out on the economic aspect of this issue.

    I am pretty sure we both understand the economic aspect of this issue. The problem is, you can't face the consequences, which are that rich countries, in which we probably both live, have to reduce CO2 emissions by a wide margin.