6 ms·

> Google is definitely leading the industry here. It's fantastic that Google plans to switch to renewables since they are one of the biggest players. Definitel

> Google is definitely leading the industry here. It's fantastic that Google plans to switch to renewables since they are one of the biggest players. Definitely an exaggeration to say that they are leading the charge. Apple was among the first to make renewables an issue and achieved 100% in data centers back in 2013, with little fanfare. http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/content-tracks/design-build/apple-reaches-100-renewable-energy-across-all-data-centers/74708.fullarticle http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/content-tracks/design-buil... And creating a subsidiary that's a power company is table stakes: https://9to5mac.com/2016/06/09/apple-energy-company/ https://9to5mac.com/2016/06/09/apple-energy-company/

evanws 10y ago
Just to be clear, 7% of Apple's global power is still dirty and they have not made any public commitment to bring that down any further. Google is a much much larger energy consumer, has been carbon neutral since 2007, and is going to use 100% renewables globally within the next year. Also, Google made its energy company play back in 2010. Apple made theirs in 2016.
- snarkyturtle 10y ago
  100% renewables for their data centers. In the same way that Apple's total power is still partly dirty I'd think some of their offices won't be running entirely off the grid.
  - astrodust 10y ago
    Apple is making great strides towards getting their offices off the grid as well. Their new campus has a considerable amount of solar deployed on-site plus they're partnering with other companies to provide power from off-site. http://qz.com/342240/apple-is-building-a-massive-farm-of-solar-panels-to-power-its-new-campus/ http://qz.com/342240/apple-is-building-a-massive-farm-of-sol...
  - evanws 10y ago
    It isn't just data centers, they're going to hit 100% renewables for global operations. From Google's 2016 energy report: "And in 2017 Google will reach 100% renewable energy for our global operations..."
    - jdc0589 10y ago
      Its not just datacenters, but those are the biggest consumer of energy by a disproportionate amount.
    - megablast 10y ago
      So the Pixels made by HTC are also using renewable energy?
      - NEDM64 10y ago
        No.
- droopyEyelids 10y ago
  Without more detail this isn't useful information. For example, Apple's global power consumption definitely includes power used in manufacturing, a problem that Google externalizes from this sort of computation.
- CPLX 10y ago
  > Google is a much much larger energy consumer That seems implausible. The electrical requirements of Aluminum production are extreme. Obviously there's a lot of issues about where one draws the line between the company and its subcontractors and so on, but it seems hard to believe Apple's global energy footprint is not higher than Google's
  - mda 10y ago
    I didn't know Apple produced its own aluminum.
    - IBM 10y ago
      Apple includes their suppliers, retail stores, offices, and customers' product use in their carbon footprint (in addition to data centers) [1]: When we measure our carbon footprint, we include hundreds of suppliers, millions of customers, and hundreds of millions of devices. And we’re always looking for ways to make the biggest difference in five major areas: manufacturing, product use, facilities, transportation, and recycling. [1] http://www.apple.com/environment/climate-change/ http://www.apple.com/environment/climate-change/
      - low_battery 10y ago
        Edit: Correction by 3 orders of magnitude because of multiplication error :) Then lets do a back of the envelope calculation for energy consumption for Apple's aluminum use. Very roughly Apple sells ~25 million macs and ~200 million iphones per year. Again lets assume that it needs 2kg of aluminum for macbooks and 100g for phones (not all iphones are aluminum and this might be lower), that makes ~70 thousand metric tonnes of aluminum. Modern smelters use 13KW/h to produce 1 kilogram of aluminum, but their production involves recycled aluminum (and possibly shavings from milling?) so number should be lower, lets say it is 10KWH per kilo. This makes 70M*10KWh = 700GW/h year Google's datacenter energy consumption, is difficult to guess, if there are 1 million servers, and assuming each server consumes 10KWH per day, then it makes ~3.5 TWH per year. This is apples to oranges of course, aluminum vs server running energy costs, but still kinda implies that Google uses more energy, at least directly.
- kevinchen 10y ago
  Apple has pressured Foxconn to build out renewable capacity for certain steps of iPhone manufacturing by 2018. There is a lot of work to be done in manufacturing (much harder problem) but they have definitely made a public commitment to reduce the impact: https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/10/22Apple-Launches-New-Clean-Energy-Programs-in-China-To-Promote-Low-Carbon-Manufacturing-and-Green-Growth.html https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/10/22Apple-Launches-Ne...
  - Ph0X 10y ago
    Let's just agree that both Apple and Google are doing fantastic jobs in this sector, and other big tech companies need to step it up.
    - infectoid 10y ago
      Indeed. Let's not drive a wedge where none is needed.
  - sangnoir 10y ago
    I think the point parent was making was that Google (as a whole, not just data centers) is leading the industry to 100% renewable energy. Something Apple - which is making great advances - is yet to achieve.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- jjtheblunt 10y ago
  citation for the assertion "Google is a much larger energy consumer" ?
  - ariwilson 10y ago
    https://blog.google/topics/environment/100-percent-renewable-energy/ https://blog.google/topics/environment/100-percent-renewable... Google is purchasing 2600GW of renewable energy as of Nov 2016, while Apple is purchasing around 150GW.
- CptJamesCook 10y ago
  Too bad Google's founders fly all over the world on private jets, doing far more damage than these measures prevent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...
  - SixSigma 10y ago
    How do iPhones get exported from China ?
    - CptJamesCook 10y ago
      Air freight.
  - late2part 10y ago
    Now you're just being silly. Yes, I'm sure they enjoy a luxurious transport and it would be more efficient for them to walk or take a rowboat or fly commercial. But the energy used, carbon emitted, is fairly small for the 1000 or so flights they take relative to the aggregate benefit they're making by buying so much "cleaner" power. You really ought consider the relative perspective, I don't think their 757 carbon impact compares to the output of a 5MW data center running 24/7.
    - CptJamesCook 10y ago
      A 747 in the air consumes more power than every single home in San Francisco. "A Boeing 747 jet has an average power consumption of 140 megawatts." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power) You can use this link to see San Francisco's power usage in 2015: http://ecdms.energy.ca.gov/elecbycounty.aspx http://ecdms.energy.ca.gov/elecbycounty.aspx It was almost exactly 140 megawatts/hour * 24 hours * 365 days. I highly doubt Google's worldwide data centers use more power than all of SF. So, not silly!
      - douche 10y ago
- NEDM64 10y ago
  Cognitive dissonance, it's your problem.
Theodores 10y ago
In Europe Apple are considered far from 'green' due to the problem of the power adaptors. Every other phone or tablet sold in the E.U. has a sensible power adaptor, usually the mini USB flavour. Apple though, they don't think the law applies to them, or at least not the spirit of the law, so they keep churning out these Apple only power adaptors complete with the cables that fray and break a lot easier than normal cables. Sure the data centres may be green but the landfill is not. Meanwhile, Google (who have far larger and more useful data centres) have been providing E.U. compliant power adaptors (or lack of) since the first Nexus phones, if not a long time before.
- forsberg 10y ago
  Actually they do follow the EU regulation. It states that the power adapters use the standard USB connector which Apple complies with. What you're thinking about is the cable between the adapter and the phone/tablet/whatever, and that cable isn't part of the regulation, only the power adaptor.
  - ghostly_s 10y ago
    > The European Standardisation Bodies CEN, CENELEC and ETSI (independent of the OMTP/GSMA proposal) defined a common External Power Supply (EPS) for use with smartphones sold in the EU based on Micro-USB. [...] Apple, one of the original MoU signers, makes Micro-USB adapters available – as permitted in the Common EPS MoU – for its iPhones equipped with Apple's proprietary 30-pin dock connector or (later) Lightning connector.[1] Nonetheless, framing ones' opinion of Apple's sustainability practices on this one pet issue seems quite myopic. The actual sustainability complaint stems from the alleged poor durability, not the choice of connection; but even if we accept that criticism, replacing charging cables occasionally seems like small drop in the bucket vs. the company's environmental impact as a whole. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Mini_and_micro_connectors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Mini_and_micro_connectors
puzzle 10y ago
Those were toy datacenters. Your first article does mention the first real one that Apple built in NC and its non-renewable energy sources (Apple had to start buying carbon offsets). That said, I can attest to Duke being a joke, including their DukeNet communications subsidiary, now belonging to TWC.

evanws 10y ago

Just to be clear, 7% of Apple's global power is still dirty and they have not made any public commitment to bring that down any further. Google is a much much larger energy consumer, has been carbon neutral since 2007, and is going to use 100% renewables globally within the next year. Also, Google made its energy company play back in 2010. Apple made theirs in 2016.

snarkyturtle 10y ago
100% renewables for their data centers. In the same way that Apple's total power is still partly dirty I'd think some of their offices won't be running entirely off the grid.
- astrodust 10y ago
  Apple is making great strides towards getting their offices off the grid as well. Their new campus has a considerable amount of solar deployed on-site plus they're partnering with other companies to provide power from off-site. http://qz.com/342240/apple-is-building-a-massive-farm-of-solar-panels-to-power-its-new-campus/ http://qz.com/342240/apple-is-building-a-massive-farm-of-sol...
- evanws 10y ago
  It isn't just data centers, they're going to hit 100% renewables for global operations. From Google's 2016 energy report: "And in 2017 Google will reach 100% renewable energy for our global operations..."
  - jdc0589 10y ago
    Its not just datacenters, but those are the biggest consumer of energy by a disproportionate amount.
  - megablast 10y ago
    So the Pixels made by HTC are also using renewable energy?
    - NEDM64 10y ago
      No.
droopyEyelids 10y ago
Without more detail this isn't useful information. For example, Apple's global power consumption definitely includes power used in manufacturing, a problem that Google externalizes from this sort of computation.
CPLX 10y ago
> Google is a much much larger energy consumer That seems implausible. The electrical requirements of Aluminum production are extreme. Obviously there's a lot of issues about where one draws the line between the company and its subcontractors and so on, but it seems hard to believe Apple's global energy footprint is not higher than Google's
- mda 10y ago
  I didn't know Apple produced its own aluminum.
  - IBM 10y ago
    Apple includes their suppliers, retail stores, offices, and customers' product use in their carbon footprint (in addition to data centers) [1]: When we measure our carbon footprint, we include hundreds of suppliers, millions of customers, and hundreds of millions of devices. And we’re always looking for ways to make the biggest difference in five major areas: manufacturing, product use, facilities, transportation, and recycling. [1] http://www.apple.com/environment/climate-change/ http://www.apple.com/environment/climate-change/
    - low_battery 10y ago
      Edit: Correction by 3 orders of magnitude because of multiplication error :) Then lets do a back of the envelope calculation for energy consumption for Apple's aluminum use. Very roughly Apple sells ~25 million macs and ~200 million iphones per year. Again lets assume that it needs 2kg of aluminum for macbooks and 100g for phones (not all iphones are aluminum and this might be lower), that makes ~70 thousand metric tonnes of aluminum. Modern smelters use 13KW/h to produce 1 kilogram of aluminum, but their production involves recycled aluminum (and possibly shavings from milling?) so number should be lower, lets say it is 10KWH per kilo. This makes 70M*10KWh = 700GW/h year Google's datacenter energy consumption, is difficult to guess, if there are 1 million servers, and assuming each server consumes 10KWH per day, then it makes ~3.5 TWH per year. This is apples to oranges of course, aluminum vs server running energy costs, but still kinda implies that Google uses more energy, at least directly.
kevinchen 10y ago
Apple has pressured Foxconn to build out renewable capacity for certain steps of iPhone manufacturing by 2018. There is a lot of work to be done in manufacturing (much harder problem) but they have definitely made a public commitment to reduce the impact: https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/10/22Apple-Launches-New-Clean-Energy-Programs-in-China-To-Promote-Low-Carbon-Manufacturing-and-Green-Growth.html https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2015/10/22Apple-Launches-Ne...
- Ph0X 10y ago
  Let's just agree that both Apple and Google are doing fantastic jobs in this sector, and other big tech companies need to step it up.
  - infectoid 10y ago
    Indeed. Let's not drive a wedge where none is needed.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  I think the point parent was making was that Google (as a whole, not just data centers) is leading the industry to 100% renewable energy. Something Apple - which is making great advances - is yet to achieve.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jjtheblunt 10y ago
citation for the assertion "Google is a much larger energy consumer" ?
- ariwilson 10y ago
  https://blog.google/topics/environment/100-percent-renewable-energy/ https://blog.google/topics/environment/100-percent-renewable... Google is purchasing 2600GW of renewable energy as of Nov 2016, while Apple is purchasing around 150GW.
CptJamesCook 10y ago
Too bad Google's founders fly all over the world on private jets, doing far more damage than these measures prevent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_aviati...
- SixSigma 10y ago
  How do iPhones get exported from China ?
  - CptJamesCook 10y ago
    Air freight.
- late2part 10y ago
  Now you're just being silly. Yes, I'm sure they enjoy a luxurious transport and it would be more efficient for them to walk or take a rowboat or fly commercial. But the energy used, carbon emitted, is fairly small for the 1000 or so flights they take relative to the aggregate benefit they're making by buying so much "cleaner" power. You really ought consider the relative perspective, I don't think their 757 carbon impact compares to the output of a 5MW data center running 24/7.
  - CptJamesCook 10y ago
    A 747 in the air consumes more power than every single home in San Francisco. "A Boeing 747 jet has an average power consumption of 140 megawatts." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power) You can use this link to see San Francisco's power usage in 2015: http://ecdms.energy.ca.gov/elecbycounty.aspx http://ecdms.energy.ca.gov/elecbycounty.aspx It was almost exactly 140 megawatts/hour * 24 hours * 365 days. I highly doubt Google's worldwide data centers use more power than all of SF. So, not silly!
    - douche 10y ago
NEDM64 10y ago
Cognitive dissonance, it's your problem.

Theodores 10y ago

In Europe Apple are considered far from 'green' due to the problem of the power adaptors. Every other phone or tablet sold in the E.U. has a sensible power adaptor, usually the mini USB flavour. Apple though, they don't think the law applies to them, or at least not the spirit of the law, so they keep churning out these Apple only power adaptors complete with the cables that fray and break a lot easier than normal cables. Sure the data centres may be green but the landfill is not. Meanwhile, Google (who have far larger and more useful data centres) have been providing E.U. compliant power adaptors (or lack of) since the first Nexus phones, if not a long time before.

forsberg 10y ago
Actually they do follow the EU regulation. It states that the power adapters use the standard USB connector which Apple complies with. What you're thinking about is the cable between the adapter and the phone/tablet/whatever, and that cable isn't part of the regulation, only the power adaptor.
- ghostly_s 10y ago
  > The European Standardisation Bodies CEN, CENELEC and ETSI (independent of the OMTP/GSMA proposal) defined a common External Power Supply (EPS) for use with smartphones sold in the EU based on Micro-USB. [...] Apple, one of the original MoU signers, makes Micro-USB adapters available – as permitted in the Common EPS MoU – for its iPhones equipped with Apple's proprietary 30-pin dock connector or (later) Lightning connector.[1] Nonetheless, framing ones' opinion of Apple's sustainability practices on this one pet issue seems quite myopic. The actual sustainability complaint stems from the alleged poor durability, not the choice of connection; but even if we accept that criticism, replacing charging cables occasionally seems like small drop in the bucket vs. the company's environmental impact as a whole. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Mini_and_micro_connectors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB#Mini_and_micro_connectors

puzzle 10y ago

Those were toy datacenters. Your first article does mention the first real one that Apple built in NC and its non-renewable energy sources (Apple had to start buying carbon offsets). That said, I can attest to Duke being a joke, including their DukeNet communications subsidiary, now belonging to TWC.