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Easy one. Apple pays a premium (to their suppliers) compared to what other non-luxury-hipster-feelgood companies can, thus buying up those (more or less) green

by ephbit 4y ago

Easy one. Apple pays a premium (to their suppliers) compared to what other non-luxury-hipster-feelgood companies can, thus buying up those (more or less) green capacities (which are scarce). Which leaves those other companies less of these green capacities. Which makes their production less green. Don't get me wrong, it's totally ok they do that. But it shouldn't lead people to think, that since Apple/Tesla succeeds, humanity doesn't need to drastically change its way of doing things. Sustainable ressources are scarce. One company stocks up on them -> others are pushed to less green sources or they have to reduce output (which they try to avoid obviously). Yeah, sure, there's also positive effects such as economies of scale improving things with sustainable business when there's more demand for it. But, in my opinion, the mining and sourcing of raw materials and the supply of renewable energy is in a pretty inelastic situation right now because of physical constraints. This inelasticity means: one players buys up more, others are pushed elsewhere. > ... falling prey to the fallacy that decarbonization is impossible. Oh it is possible. It's not possible as fast as most politicians make it appear. Here are some numbers at minute 40: "Assoc Prof Simon Michaux - The quantity of metals required to manufacture just one generation of renewable technology to phase out fossil fuels" https://youtu.be/MBVmnKuBocc?t=2400 https://youtu.be/MBVmnKuBocc?t=2400

epistasis 4y ago
That would be the case if there were fungible inputs, some of which were decarbonized and some of which were not. But that's not the case, as far as I understand any Apple's inputs. New supply chains and new accounting for all the supply chains will need to be created.
- ephbit 4y ago
  Let's say you have a facility where chips/semiconductors/electronic components are produced. Supplying this facility with green electricity only is pretty easy. Sign contract with energy company, done. All the raw material inputs needed to produce the components, that's where it gets interesting. I kind of doubt you'll find a copper (or whatever) mine where green electricity powered dump trucks drive around (which .. in turn would need to have been produced sustainably, otherwise they add CO2 to the BOM). And good luck trying to first build the factories for the production of components from exclusively decarbonized materials. Steel? Concrete? Plastics?

by ephbit 4y ago

epistasis 4y ago

That would be the case if there were fungible inputs, some of which were decarbonized and some of which were not. But that's not the case, as far as I understand any Apple's inputs. New supply chains and new accounting for all the supply chains will need to be created.

ephbit 4y ago
Let's say you have a facility where chips/semiconductors/electronic components are produced. Supplying this facility with green electricity only is pretty easy. Sign contract with energy company, done. All the raw material inputs needed to produce the components, that's where it gets interesting. I kind of doubt you'll find a copper (or whatever) mine where green electricity powered dump trucks drive around (which .. in turn would need to have been produced sustainably, otherwise they add CO2 to the BOM). And good luck trying to first build the factories for the production of components from exclusively decarbonized materials. Steel? Concrete? Plastics?