GreenPeace Criticizes Apple Data Center 'Greening'

I agree:

This whole business of "Cap and Trade" always struck me as a bunch of malarky. Too much like the Catholic Church selling indulgences.

Bob Wilson

 

..agreed, can't be nice about it.
I'll say we'd be glad to have Apple move to Virginia.

 

Bob,

If you will acknowledge that the US no longer has an acid rain problem, then you need to understand that this was done in an inexpensive way through cap and trade. But cap and trade plans are not all the same. The EU ghg plan seems to be doing a poor job, and a plan accross many countries is difficult. In the US the ghg cap and trade plan was corrupted before it even came to a vote, and would have likely have not reduced any ghg at all until today, but there would have been wealth transfer to coal companies.

Renewable Energy Certs also have corrupting influences, and very from state to state and program to program. Some are quite good, and build new renewable power. Let's compare programs. In a green choice program as in Austin, there are no certs, apple's Austin offices contracts with the utility for wind, wind was built to supply them, and everything works as it should. There are no certs involved, but for conventions here, certs are often included in the price. The organizer adds money to the ticket prices, then tries to find programs that are helped with the additional money. If REC money gets additional renewables built, that is not a bad thing. Now lets delve down to what greenpeace is looking at in north carolina, which is double dipping. North Carolina has a renewable portfolio standard where a certain amount needs to be built by 2020. When Duke energy builds the power, they can sell certs, and both duke and the buyer claim the same renewable, when actually no additional renewable was created. Alternatively apple gets certs when they build the solar and biogas fuel cells, if they sell the certs then not only does duke not need to build renewables, but apple gets money and doesn't really pay for their renewable energy. Greenpeace is asking apple to burn the certs, which will throw away money, but get more renewables built. Apple may have been planning to do that anyway. Better than building the renewables and burning the certs might be to work with duke to create a green choice program like austin has, which may have a multiplier effect on the renewables as other businesses join the program. Then Duke might get to the RPS faster, and build even more renewable energy than required by the regulators.

 

We can agree that cap and trade, the exchange of 'green credits' has too often become nonsense, an accounting trick. You get renewable energy by building renewable energy infrastructure. Buying bonds or stock makes sense. These other approaches, well too much opportunity for double counting. But sometimes Apple does screw up.

San Francisco did it right when Apple decided to 'de-green' their products. Their City government took the Apple products off their procurement list. Action, reaction, it makes sense. Apple responded and reversed their decision. Justice.

But I still take exception to singling out Apple when it is not just Apple but a host of corporation playing with this monopoly money. But since the mid-1980s, I've seen enough PC motivated, anti-Apple nonsense and Green Peace stepped right into that pattern. Just like the "Agony of Steve Jobs," it came over as another anti-Apple hatchet job.

There are good reasons to suspect various schemes to fund renewable energy. But attack the fraud and don't single out one company. The headline says it all:

Green Peace Criticizes Apple . . .​

It wasn't "Green Peace Criticizes Energy Credits" or whatever the current nom d'jour for these schemes.

Bob Wilson

 

We can agree to that. My point is cap and trade when done well can be quite effective. The rec programs are not cap and trade. When a business is incompatible with directly building renewable, then the recs are a good way to build them, but rec programs are not-even. In north carolina, and many of the rec states, a green choice program would be much better than a REC system and avoid much of the corruption. Green Peace seems to say that oregon has such a system, and I would have assumed that apple would use that system instead of using recs from a different power provider.

gulp... um, they self certified that their product met the standard, and the standard is pretty fuzzy. Most of us would like apple to have removable batteries, but there may be trade offs on some ultra thin items. It probably costs a penny or two to add screws instead of glue.

Hey they attacked everyone. This is glossy environmentalism. Making apple a focus got news coverage, which is what they want. Then they can ask for money when apple does what they ask it to do. Apple may have been doing exactly what they are asking for before, they just haven't made their plan public.

 

Nope. Greenpeace did note the facts that Apple was not using green energy while Apple was claiming the opposite.

Good thing we have watchdog groups like Greenpeace

 

IMHO renewable energy credits should not be criticized in general.
They should be criticized in the North Carolina implementation, and Duke has influence on how that was drawn up. Here are some of the facts along with some opinions that I do not endorse
North Carolina Renewable Portfolio Standard « SRECTrade Blog
The only point I agree with completely is they need a SACP to enforce compliance. If investor owned utilities are building the bulk of the solar great! It does allow washington DC to buy RECs cheaper though, and that may not produce as much power. The big thing people get upset about is the large amount of coal. If the idea is to reduce pollution adding a little renewable isn't going to do it. Having so much coal and nuclear caps how much renewables can be easily added to the grid. 12.5% is too low for the RPS.

Here is greenpeace on duke, but it does not get headlines anymore, so they are using apple

Greenpeace activists erect banner in front of Duke Headquarters | Greenpeace

Greenpeace | Quit Coal: Tell Duke Energy to Quit Coal

But lets not be shy here, one reason Data centers are moving to NC because of cheap electricity
10 reasons Apple, Facebook & Google chose North Carolina for their mega data centers — Cleantech News and Analysis

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/business/energy-environment/cloud-services-rely-on-coal-or-nuclear-power-greenpeace-says.html

One thing about the NC energy sources, half the homes have electric space and hot water heating. One easy spot to reduce pollution is to slowly convert some of these from electric to natural gas and speed the shutting down of some coal plants, that would align demand more with solar. That may be one of the most cost effective ways to change. NC also is well suited for wind turbines.

 

They target everything from whalers to oil companies. Greenpeace has good science on its side and does good work.