mikethemartian

blastdoor said:

Apple and its suppliers now use more than 18 gigawatts of clean energy.

This is kind of a strange statement, because a watt is a measure of the rate of flow, like miles per hour. Saying you used 18 gigawatts is like saying you traveled a distance of 60 mph. Without knowing time, we don’t know how much energy was actually used or miles traveled.

ill hazard a guess that what’s meant here is that Apple used the energy generated by clean energy sources which, at theoretical peak utilization, can put out 18 gigawatts. Kind of like saying I used 120mph because the car I drove theoretically maxes out at 120mph. But that tells you nothing about how fast I actually went or how far I traveled. 

The more meaningful numbers are — how many megawatt-hours of electricity did Apple and their suppliers use and what percentage of that came from renewable sources.