Greenpeace slams Apple's iCloud for relying 'heavily on dirty energy' - Page 3

Greenpeace came around to my house last month looking for donations. I told them I already donated to the French Secret Service.

Donate them to bullshit ?

That would be Network Solutions ...

http://www.networksolutions.com/whoi...greenpeace.org

Here we go again: Greenpeace whoring for fame

Instead of tackling the whole industry, they lazily go after the most popular one. All I ever hear about is them going after Apple. They're no less activists than that bum co-worker who's pretending to do his job.

What's worse, people donate to these yahoos because of their name. My cousin is one of them -- he doesn't follow what they do but stroke's his ego saying that he donated.

Green peace head quarters depends upon electricity that comes from fossil fuels. Their ships and boats run off of fossil fuels. Yet they slam Apple for depending on Electricity generated by fossil fuels.

Remind me what GreenPeace uses to fuel their boats that they use in their eco-terrorism acts such as hassling Japanese boats?

Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

GreenPeace can kiss my fat hairy buttocks before I ever take them seriously. Bunch of hypocrites.

Actually if you look at the satellite shots of the area which predate the building of the datacenter you will see that most of it was already mostly cleared for farming -they may have dropped an acre or two of new growth wooded area at best. And do you know that Apple is in fact using those panels requiring the "nastiest environmentally damaging chemicals and processes" or using suppliers like BioSolar or Solarus that use either bio-friendly or recycled materials.

That is true. That is not being 'green'.

But then again, nobody ever said it was.

I don't get it.

Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple use the most nuclear power, the cleanest, safest, and most economical form of energy generation this planet has ever seen.

According to this piece by All Things D

http://allthingsd.com/20120417/green...D_yahoo_ticker

Hey Greenpeace,

if all the "dirty" coal power stations stopped operating right now, the world would collapse as the power shut down for most of it.

Perhaps its true, because it's TRUE.

Been here since 2007 and this surprises you?

Greenpeace hounding Apple is nothing new.

And unlike Consumer Reports, this is the Greenpeace status quo.

Why is anyone surprised when Greenpeace gets things all wrong?

Interestingly, when the thread came up before, I pointed out that Greenpeace's estimate of 10% of total power from solar was wrong because they vastly overestimated energy usage. All Things D came to the same conclusion.

Eff Greenpeace, bunch of left-wing anti-capitalist and free market marxists...

So since President Obama is against coal power and his lobbyists from wind and solar power industries are "so much wiser" coal is a no, no? Continue pursuing algae, wind, solar, etc. and when they are able to outperform a coal powered plant we'll make the switch. Until then please keep the snarky attitude for mum and dad.

The new report issued on Tuesday, entitled "How Clean is Your Cloud?," pans Apple's iCloud service for relying largely on coal-based power. Apple was lumped in with Amazon and Microsoft as companies that Greenpeace claims "rely heavily on dirty energy to power their clouds."

"Instead of playing catch up, Apple has the ingenuity, on-hand cash and innovative spirit to Think Different and make substantial improvements in the type of energy that powers its cloud," the report reads.

You know, I've about had it with these idiots. Last I checked, Apple (among others) weren't in the power generation or distribution business. Like hundreds of other business and millions of customers in the area, they rely on power generated by the 'dirty' power companies. Why not slam these other business and consumers as well? No, be cause it grabs headlines to slam tech companies. Go after the power companies, be an of change where you might just be effective. Then again you tried that and were told to take a hike...

And who is Greenpeace to say what Apple or any other business should do with their 'on-hand cash'? Bunch of finger pointing attempt to do-gooders.

Stop with the factually barren nonsense that Clean and Coal are married together.

Study Chemistry, Thermodynamics and much more or please stop fud'ing up the board. Go h ang out with the DDT fans.

Go read reports from the DoE on how unclean Clean Coal is or go bother any ABET accredited University with respected programs in Chemisty, Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science.

I'd suggest you become an M.E. but I doubt you'd be asking about citations if you already were one. We knew Coal was and always would be dirty back during my undergrad M.E. degree.

The dirtiness of coal is common knowledge as is the efforts of the coal lobby to claim against all scientific evidence that there is such a thing as "clean" coal technology.

It's also, basic science ... when someone makes an outrageous or sensational claim that defies common sense, reason and established science ... the onus is on them to prove their claim.

Claiming "coal is clean" and there is "nothing wrong" with burning it, equates with claiming that a UFO ate your lunch or your Mother was Hitler.

I know this was put out by Apple and will put Apple in the best light possible, but it would seem that Greenpeace, besides being wrong on this issue of cloud computing, should look at the total carbon footprint for a company

http://www.apple.com/environment/

I wonder what computers they use at Greenpeace and I wonder if they vet all their venders for energy efficiency, among other things.

Neal

While you are absolutely correct, the reality makes Greenpeace look even worse.

They assumed that the NC data center would use 100 MW of power and only 10 MW would be from solar.

In reality, the data center will probably use closer to 30 MW of power (maybe less if the focus on energy efficiency while building it) and solar will provide closer to 20.

It's not surprising that their conclusions are wrong when they use made up numbers.

I hope Apple sues them for libel - but they won't. Greenpeace gets away with murder because they've convinced everyone that they're the good guys and anyone who challenges them is pro-pollution.

GREENPEACE can kiss my _ _ _ . When all of their offices and vehicles and computers and homes and cell phones and boats, and whatever... run on solar, wind, or otherwise.. they really need to STFU!

all those things take energy to manufacture.

Unless somebody lives in a mud hut and eats earthworms, they have no right to try to make the world a better place!

Define "clean"?

To me it's the minimum ecological impact.

In which case there are very few sources of "clean" power. Certainly hydro is out if you look at Three Gorges as the exemplar:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...0IH_story.html

Nuclear has significant ecological impact as well.

Construction of PV panels has ecological impact.

http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/scien...1395225e3.html

Are coal plants, on average, more polluting? Yes, especially given the really crappy plants in China.

Are coal plants with full on "clean coal" technology including carbon sequestration cleaner than traditional plants? Yep. Probably clean enough for the short term. It's just expensive, perhaps expensive enough that alternative energy sources are better cost wise.

Anyone claiming any power production technology is "zero emission" and "clean" is selling something. Likewise someone telling you that either coal or nuclear can never be "clean" enough is selling something (probably a Sierra club membership).

Me, I'm putting in solar panels but I don't kid myself its for environmental reasons. It's for economic reasons and only really viable because of subsidies. I'm pushing the pollution somewhere else and am completely punting the disposal costs/impact when the panels are replaced. The decomposition of GaAs cells probably ends up releasing some toxic chemicals.

I dither though...it really strikes me we're very close to significant price drops in PV panels but I've been thinking that for 10 years now. I'd hate to get stuck with "old inefficient" panels for over a decade.

I suspect electrical costs in the US are about to go up given the number of nuclear plants nearing end of life regardless of the NRC extensions. The original design specs were for a 40 year duty cycle...and I suspect we're going to have a significant event that causes many of these older plants with extensions to be shut down for safety reasons. I just hope it's not Calvert Cliffs although I suspect I'm never actually downwind of CC.

If you say emitting co2 is dirty then coal fired generation is dirty. But other than co2 the flue gas is cleaner than what is coming out of a car's exhaust pipe.

You know you can really blow all of the ME's, PhD's, and all of the other "accredited Internet genius'" minds away by telling them CO2 is plant food.

It's no use arguing, to them coal is 100% evil, completely ignoring the massive resources that are a part of the manufacturing process for alternative methods of energy production. Only one person (NHT) has enough sense to know even solar isn't "clean".

All right on - except the "formerly great" as applied to Greenpeace - which has always been over the top.

Call it the Greenpeace/Daisey/et al Effect: If you're going nowhere fast, make trumped up accusations against Apple.

If an analyst, make dire predictions. If you're in the Win Forever camp, say that Flashback means OS X is now as vulnerable as Windows. If you're a blogger, speculate rampantly about the prospect of Android tablets displacing the iPad "Real Soon Now." Or just fume. If aggrieved and greedy, organize a class action suit over some minor nonsense. Spurious patent suits. Etc., etc., etc. Collectively, all of this is a whole industry in and of itself!

And... ...in places of honor (such as it is), if you're an increasingly irrelevant consumer organization make hay out of antenna and warm iPad back kerfuffles. Or if a fat, semi-talented monologist with nothing exciting to monologize about, go to China, make up a bunch of shit about Foxconn and get to Broadway.

And... ...starting from quite a few years ago now, if you're a rag-tag bunch of environmental activists who sensationalize everything (because like Daisey you believe your frothing is "truer than the truth") who haven't been able to get a headline of late, make Apple the focus of your dirty energy campaign.

As several have said, it's not "bowling for dollars," it's "trolling for dollars." Or to rework another old axiom, "No one ever got FEWER web hits for attacking Apple."

As a kid it was always taught/advertised as China, Russia and quite a few bunches of workers who fought for their rights.

That is false. Particulates, for example, are orders of magnitude higher coming from a coal plant. Heavy metals (particularly mercury and cadmium) are major problems for coal, as well.


It would help if you understood the concepts before posting foolish arguments. While CO2 is taken up by plants, plants are not able to take up anywhere near as much as we're emitting.

Planting millions of acres of trees (as well as stopping deforestation) would help, but it still isn't sufficient to solve the problem.

The solar far involved cutting down a huge amount of trees to enable construction, so it's not exactly "clean".


Other organizations have tried in the past.



Typical strip mining procedures are the really destructive part of the process more than incidental pollutants.


Greenpeace is pretty much the Fox News of environmental groups, and yeah they are likely to later praise Apple on the use of solar power even with the number of trees that were cleared to build the solar farm. Obviously I don't know what other viable options were available when they were looking at locations.


Again...I'm not a fan of Greenpeace, but Apple's culture has always revolved around doing their own thing whether it's a good or bad idea. Suggesting that this is the only way to remain competitive is nonsense. Regarding passing laws, that takes a long time. It's not a bad thing to have major companies on board with your message, and it brings them good PR. I dislike the way Greenpeace operates, but protecting the environment needs to be a cultural thing at all levels, not just the responsibility of businesses and lawmakers. Simply passing laws doesn't fix the problem when others lobby against them or attempt to create workarounds that are just as bad. You need a cooperative effort in that regard rather than stereotyping anyone who thinks in such a manner as a hippy (by the way, I don't even come close to resembling one). It needs to be a very mainstream thing rather than a trendy one.

Oh trust me, I understand the concepts of groups like Greenpeace. The concept is any cheep energy is a bad thing, its just a matter of whether or not you are naive enough to know it.

I'll tell you coal is the cheapest/best source of energy in 2012. Now its your turn, you tell me what gives more BTU's for the money and "ecological impact". And before you spout wind, solar, algae, think of how much land and other resources are required to generate 1/10 of what a coal plant can generate. Don't forget, you are going to be using mostly coal to build your solar, wind, algae, projects...