Those solar panels look like ipanels. I wonder if Apple received a patent on solar panels on grass (verry conceivable in our patent system). Good for them though, just screams a tad arrogance though, like smeeling your own fart arrogance. I think Google has spent nearly 2 billion dollars on clean energy owns the world's largest solar farm, and some giant winds farms. They are without a doubt the leader in clean energy between the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Facebook etc. Yet I've never seen them take out a full ad on doing what most publicly aware company should be doing. Weird.
I don't think you understand what Google is doing. They call out multi-million investments in energy projects, but when you read the details what they are actually doing is just contracting power purchase agreements from the facilities. That does have positive effects for both sides, but it means that Google doesn't own the facilities or even a percentage of the facilities when they do that. They do get a percentage and in at least one case all of the output from a wind or solar farm. Essentially Google is just pre-purchasing power for operations to ensure they have what they need.
Apple's carbon footprint dwarfs Google's because of the manufacturing of its products. Google's numbers don't look like they include subsidiaries like Motorola (2012 numbers) or the manufacturing of Google branded products, but either way you would expect Apple to still be higher due to the volume of the devices they sell.
Google's power purchase agreements offset 504,657 metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2012. If you look at Apple's numbers for 2013, it had offset 73% of the .6M metric tons of CO2 emissions for all of its facilities. That would put Apple's number at 438,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions offset with renewable energy. By those numbers it shows Google has offset more power than Apple, but even if we had the 2013 numbers it doesn't appear to be an enormous amount. Google also has some private renewable power like the solar array at their headquarters which wouldn't be accounted for in their PPA offsets. The real difference here is Apple's actual investments in renewable infrastructure and not just investments as purchase agreements.
So Apple is buying solar, hydro, etc to operate and generate their needed power and Google is pre-paying about 1/3 of their electric bill from renewable sources. Both approaches have positive merits, but I currently favor Apple's approach. When Google's PPAs expire, Apple will still have their infrastructure. It does put Apple in the power generation business, but they probably outsource the work anyway. Google is doing this behind the meter side as well, but just on a much smaller scale. I just like Apple's side from a true investment perspective for renewables. Google's approach has some really good upside for the public utility sector and that should not be lost. I still don't like Google, but their current renewable approach is probably better than many of the other companies out there.
Google reportedly became "carbon neutral" in 2007.
Google maintains at least a couple of dozen data centers and perhaps more with quite a few spread around the world in locations that perhaps have no access to "green energy". But kudos to Apple for keeping it in mind as they build new centers. http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/05/15/google-data-center-faq/
Apple owns the largest private clean energy facility in the US. Where Google depended on Duke in NC to get around to providing green energy Apple built out their own solar farm.
The difference between Google and Apple is when Google touts another $x for y MW in renewables it's a contract for purchase from a utility. When Apple does so it's often actual new capacity it has built out on its own property.
Apple generates far more green energy than Google does.
Perhaps they do. dunno. How many KW's of "green energy" does Apple actually produce compared to what Google actually produces?
That's a good question. Another one is how much land is used to generate that energy. Also every one likes to quote peak output of a panel array, under ideal circumstances. I'd like to know the average output, over the course of a full year. The push towards alternative technologies is great, but at the same time I think we need to be a little more realistic on where everything is today. People see this ad and think wow, Apple is running on pure sunshine and that's just not the case.
I'm not saying Apple shouldn't be exploring options like this but for how worked up people can get when an add can be slightly misleading, its amazing how many people are cool with this. I guess its all in the message and wether or not that's what you want believe...
While I applaud Apple for embracing environmental policies, it falls down badly in one area and that is reuse/retasking of iPhones. Many old iPhones end up in landfill not because they are broken or useless but because they are locked to a carrier and cannot be easily given away to someone to use with another carrier or even sold S/H. A case in point, here in Japan where the iPhone is phenomenally popular and where people upgrade about every 18 months, all iPhones are locked to either SoftBank, au or Docomo. These carriers refuse to unlock out-of-contract iPhones so people just toss them in the garbage or a drawer (where 120 million phones are now sitting unused) because they cannot be used outside Japan. Although old, these phones have life and value in NIEs like India and Africa where they could be reused instead of doing nothing or worse polluting landfill. Apple could solve this in a blink by whitelisting out-of-contract phones or forcing carriers to do so. Come on Tim, do the RIGHT thing.
These carriers refuse to unlock out-of-contract iPhones so people just toss them in the garbage or a drawer (where 120 million phones are now sitting unused) because they cannot be used outside Japan. Although old, these phones have life and value in NIEs like India and Africa where they could be reused instead of doing nothing or worse polluting landfill.
Unlocking of out of contract phones is really something your government should legally mandate of the carriers. It falls under an issue of consumer rights once you're out of the contract period on subsidized equipment.
Yes, but trying to get the Japanese government to do anything on its own initiative to protect consumers over business is like trying to get blood out of stone.What we need is to get the Japanese housewives' consumer federation on our side—they are a force to reckon with.
Comments
Those solar panels look like ipanels. I wonder if Apple received a patent on solar panels on grass (verry conceivable in our patent system). Good for them though, just screams a tad arrogance though, like smeeling your own fart arrogance. I think Google has spent nearly 2 billion dollars on clean energy owns the world's largest solar farm, and some giant winds farms. They are without a doubt the leader in clean energy between the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Facebook etc. Yet I've never seen them take out a full ad on doing what most publicly aware company should be doing. Weird.
I don't think you understand what Google is doing. They call out multi-million investments in energy projects, but when you read the details what they are actually doing is just contracting power purchase agreements from the facilities. That does have positive effects for both sides, but it means that Google doesn't own the facilities or even a percentage of the facilities when they do that. They do get a percentage and in at least one case all of the output from a wind or solar farm. Essentially Google is just pre-purchasing power for operations to ensure they have what they need.
Apple's carbon footprint dwarfs Google's because of the manufacturing of its products. Google's numbers don't look like they include subsidiaries like Motorola (2012 numbers) or the manufacturing of Google branded products, but either way you would expect Apple to still be higher due to the volume of the devices they sell.
Google's power purchase agreements offset 504,657 metric tons of CO2 emissions in 2012. If you look at Apple's numbers for 2013, it had offset 73% of the .6M metric tons of CO2 emissions for all of its facilities. That would put Apple's number at 438,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions offset with renewable energy. By those numbers it shows Google has offset more power than Apple, but even if we had the 2013 numbers it doesn't appear to be an enormous amount. Google also has some private renewable power like the solar array at their headquarters which wouldn't be accounted for in their PPA offsets. The real difference here is Apple's actual investments in renewable infrastructure and not just investments as purchase agreements.
So Apple is buying solar, hydro, etc to operate and generate their needed power and Google is pre-paying about 1/3 of their electric bill from renewable sources. Both approaches have positive merits, but I currently favor Apple's approach. When Google's PPAs expire, Apple will still have their infrastructure. It does put Apple in the power generation business, but they probably outsource the work anyway. Google is doing this behind the meter side as well, but just on a much smaller scale. I just like Apple's side from a true investment perspective for renewables. Google's approach has some really good upside for the public utility sector and that should not be lost. I still don't like Google, but their current renewable approach is probably better than many of the other companies out there.
Apple owns the largest private clean energy facility in the US. Where Google depended on Duke in NC to get around to providing green energy Apple built out their own solar farm.
The difference between Google and Apple is when Google touts another $x for y MW in renewables it's a contract for purchase from a utility. When Apple does so it's often actual new capacity it has built out on its own property.
Apple generates far more green energy than Google does.
Perhaps they do. dunno. How many KW's of "green energy" does Apple actually produce compared to what Google actually produces?
It doesn't really matter all that much as both companies seem committed to not poisoning the communities they operate in.
Perhaps they do. dunno. How many KW's of "green energy" does Apple actually produce compared to what Google actually produces?
That's a good question. Another one is how much land is used to generate that energy. Also every one likes to quote peak output of a panel array, under ideal circumstances. I'd like to know the average output, over the course of a full year. The push towards alternative technologies is great, but at the same time I think we need to be a little more realistic on where everything is today. People see this ad and think wow, Apple is running on pure sunshine and that's just not the case.
I'm not saying Apple shouldn't be exploring options like this but for how worked up people can get when an add can be slightly misleading, its amazing how many people are cool with this. I guess its all in the message and wether or not that's what you want believe...
Many old iPhones end up in landfill not because they are broken or useless but because they are locked to a carrier and cannot be easily given away to someone to use with another carrier or even sold S/H.
A case in point, here in Japan where the iPhone is phenomenally popular and where people upgrade about every 18 months, all iPhones are locked to either SoftBank, au or Docomo.
These carriers refuse to unlock out-of-contract iPhones so people just toss them in the garbage or a drawer (where 120 million phones are now sitting unused) because they cannot be used outside Japan. Although old, these phones have life and value in NIEs like India and Africa where they could be reused instead of doing nothing or worse polluting landfill.
Apple could solve this in a blink by whitelisting out-of-contract phones or forcing carriers to do so.
Come on Tim, do the RIGHT thing.
These carriers refuse to unlock out-of-contract iPhones so people just toss them in the garbage or a drawer (where 120 million phones are now sitting unused) because they cannot be used outside Japan. Although old, these phones have life and value in NIEs like India and Africa where they could be reused instead of doing nothing or worse polluting landfill.
Unlocking of out of contract phones is really something your government should legally mandate of the carriers. It falls under an issue of consumer rights once you're out of the contract period on subsidized equipment.
Yes, but trying to get the Japanese government to do anything on its own initiative to protect consumers over business is like trying to get blood out of stone.What we need is to get the Japanese housewives' consumer federation on our side—they are a force to reckon with.