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Microsoft: We're Razing Our Redmond Campus To Build a Mini City (zdnet.com)
Armand Winter shares a report from ZDNet: Microsoft president Brad Smith said the company will spend $150 million in transport infrastructure, public spaces, sports fields and green space. It expects the project will create 2,500 construction and development jobs. Microsoft's renovation budget is modest compared with the $5 billion Apple spent on its new spaceship headquarters in Cupertino, while Microsoft's Washington neighbor and cloud rival, Amazon, will spend $5 billion on a second North American headquarters, which will offer space for 50,000 people. "We are not only creating a world-class work environment to help retain and attract the best and brightest global talent, but also building a campus that our neighbors can enjoy, and that we can build in a fiscally smart way with low environmental impact," said Smith in a blog post.
Welcome to West Virginia in the 1950s, where the company owned everything in the mining town.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
A wise person once told me that the most environmentally friendly building is one that's already built, at least in most instances.
Tearing down a building to put up another is horrible for the environment. All things considered it is USUALLY better for the environment to revamp and remodel an existing building over removing it and starting new.
Of course, sometimes the real issue is that the old building just looks dated or takes up too much of the buildable space and replacing it is really just an esthetics and convenience question, often justified by "we will build an environmentally friendly replacement!" statement.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Even from an environmental perspective, what's the point of roof top solar in Washington? According to my power bill, 87% of my electricity comes from hydro and 11% comes from nuclear. There is only one coal power station in the state (in Centralia) and it's scheduled to close by 2025. Seems like buying power from the grid is greener than manufacturing new Chinese solar panels.
Who said they were Chinese?
Look, most wind and solar are built in the US. I think you incorrectly believe that all wind turbines and solar panels are built in China. A lot of the patents and the facilities for making them are here. In various states, but especially in the county where Microsoft has their HQ.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
According to my power bill, 87% of my electricity comes from hydro and 11% comes from nuclear.
Where do you live, Newhalem? (mostly kidding) But seriously, as far as I know, Microsoft gets power from Puget Sound Energy, and PSE says they get 31% from hydro:
https://www.pse.com/aboutpse/E...
Sadly 37% is coal. But 22% natural gas and 9% wind.
I did some Google searches and I found that you are correct: Washington just has a single coal plant, and it will shut down its coal burning by 2025. I believe it will burn natural gas after that; it already has a combined cycle gas turbine power unit, operating alongside the two coal power units. Since the two coal power units produce 1340 megaWatts and the combined cycle unit produces only 248 megaWatts, presumably they will be building more non-coal power units.
http://www.power-technology.com/projects/centralia/
But it's still possible to use coal power from out of state, as discussed here: https://www.opb.org/news/article/the-northwest-struggles-with-coal-generated-power-from-out-of-state/
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Saving money is the point. Solar PV will pay for itself in 5-10 years, depending on location. They only add a fraction of a percent to the cost of the building, but will generate a guaranteed return for at least 20 years, probably longer.
These days you have to justify NOT fitting them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC