Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

rdlink

macrumors 68040
Nov 10, 2007
3,226
2,435
Out of the Reach of the FBI
Deere, Alcoa, steel mills, Maytag, Honda etc. You must watch a lot of TV and think Iowa is all tractors and farms all day long right? We not making battleships here or anything, but we do a lot of manufacturing. We don't compare with large coastal manufacturing but we do have large manufacturing going on here.

We have 72 coal plants here in Iowa so we do have those trains rolling in here and I'm still in favor of them. I used to deliver packages to a coal plant a few time a week as a part of a previous job. Even though we have all this terrible coal, Iowa is still beautiful.

I've actually been a little closer than that, my friend. As in I've ridden a bicycle across Iowa. And relatively speaking you have very little heavy manufacturing.

And FYI, corn isn't that beautiful. Until it's inside the pig... ;-)
 

Taz Mangus

macrumors 604
Mar 10, 2011
7,815
3,504
It is trite to suggest that Apple uses 100% renewable energy.

Manufacturing an iPhone involves a lot of mining for metals and minerals, this is not coming form clean renewable usage of energy. Even recycling metal involves a lot of energy usage. Shipping iDevices from China around the world is not using clean and renewable energy. Having customers stream content from the cloud instead of storing it on a device causes customers to burn through more energy.

So sure, Apple has done more to protect themselves from Greenpeace criticism, but of course the narrow minded, short-sited environmentalists do not look at the wide scale impact Apple has on the environment, and that involves 25+ million people discarding an old device within weeks of Apple releasing a marginal device update yet Apple makes everyone think it is the second coming of Christ.

Apple could do more for the environment to simply opt for at least a 2 year life cycle on all products, reducing the impact of producing and distributing a new device on a quick turnover and having customer "enjoy" their device for longer periods of time, but then that would eat into company profits and when it comes to ANY corporation and profit, its always "**** the environment!"

Apple using renewable energy in a factory or data center is just lipstick on a pig. Their impact on consumers is huge simply because of their greed and incessant need to grow profit.

Wow and imagine the impact all these manufacturers of Android phones have on the environment considering their main goal is to produce a cheap throw away phone and come out with a new one every few months. So you are right we should only be ranting about how evil Apple is.

EDIT: And according to Strategy Analytics over 1090.3 Million non-iOS phones were produced in 2014. That's 1 Billion 90 Million non-iOS phones. And what are these manufacturers of non-iOS phones doing to be environmentally responsible. Last I checked most if not all are being assembled and shipped from China.

These sure don't look like mere lipstick on a pig items to me. At least they are a good start:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102666244
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/04/17/apple-grows-its-own-solar-farms-in-china/
http://www.i4u.com/2015/05/91108/apple-plants-trees-china
 
Last edited:

ksuyen

macrumors 6502a
Jun 26, 2012
772
141
Now that's something the other companies can't copy.

I guess people won't copy something that is not directly increase their profit ($$$). When will Google learn? :eek: Fans loyalty do comes from positive awareness.
 

Aidyn's X

macrumors regular
Mar 25, 2010
191
50
It is trite to suggest that Apple uses 100% renewable energy.

Manufacturing an iPhone involves a lot of mining for metals and minerals, this is not coming form clean renewable usage of energy. Even recycling metal involves a lot of energy usage. Shipping iDevices from China around the world is not using clean and renewable energy. Having customers stream content from the cloud instead of storing it on a device causes customers to burn through more energy.

So sure, Apple has done more to protect themselves from Greenpeace criticism, but of course the narrow minded, short-sited environmentalists do not look at the wide scale impact Apple has on the environment, and that involves 25+ million people discarding an old device within weeks of Apple releasing a marginal device update yet Apple makes everyone think it is the second coming of Christ.

Apple could do more for the environment to simply opt for at least a 2 year life cycle on all products, reducing the impact of producing and distributing a new device on a quick turnover and having customer "enjoy" their device for longer periods of time, but then that would eat into company profits and when it comes to ANY corporation and profit, its always "**** the environment!"

Apple using renewable energy in a factory or data center is just lipstick on a pig. Their impact on consumers is huge simply because of their greed and incessant need to grow profit.

First, this article specifically references server farms, not manufacturing, although there are talks of Apple making strides in that respect as well.

Next, 25 million plus people are not simply throwing their devices away when they upgrade. I, like many, sell the older device to someone who likely dropped theirs in the toilet or some other unfortunate event, for more than I purchase my new (apparently not worth it purchase) iPhone on contract. Apple also has a recycling program for older devices you wish to discard. They seem to be covering the whole manufacturing to distribution in terms of energy. I'm sure the extra specs on your phone is worth the pollution created by the company that doesn't even care to consider being more eco friendly.
 

i.mac

macrumors 6502a
Dec 14, 2007
996
247
Screw clean energy. We need cheap energy. Please use coal! Debt, massive unemployment, businesses clearing out and moving to other countries because of high energy costs.

Not using coal is gutting America financially. If this isn't realized soon, this country is going to fall apart.

It's as simple as that.

Let me guess... Conservative ? In the U.S., republican with Fox on all the time?
 

AlecZ

macrumors 65816
Sep 11, 2014
1,173
123
Berkeley, CA
Because it's not... If you're not convinced, what about spending your next holidays doing some tourism in Fukushima ?
And we still have no durable solutions to handle nuclear waste. For now, we just store it in salt mines. And then ? What happens in centuries or millennia, during wars, revolutions or earth quakes ? The main difference is that with coal we are destroying our earth today, with nuclear we are leaving our great-grandchildren to deal with our mess...

Nuclear power is more risky than unclean. It's clean as long as there isn't a screwup. Coal pollutes for sure, and it does leave problems for future generations, especially if its emissions affect the climate (which is undetermined for now). Sure, wind and solar are probably nicer than nuclear, but I don't think it's fair or neutral to put nuclear in the "dirty" energy list.

----------

I wonder how Greenpeach feels about the 100+ acres of trees Apple had to destroy to install the 1st solar farm?

And when Apple realized it didn't generate enough power, I wonder how Greenpeach feels about the 2nd 100 acres of trees that were razed to build the 2nd solar farm...

Wonder how Greenpeach feels about the 3rd 100 acre solar farm project now under way that will clear away that many more trees.

I thought that organization included a bunch of tree huggers, what happened?

For a huge company, 300 acres isn't that bad. Any farming company must take way more.

----------

Ya, but the attack on energy is massive. From Obama's goal to make gas costs painful to putting cheap energy out of business. This one single idea of high fossil fuel costs has head devastating impact and change from the dude down the street that delivers pizza to the business that fields 5000 delivery trucks.

His political position would give him a motive for this, but how to look at it depends on how cynical you are. Either way, I'm sure the Democratic and Green parties are frustrated with the oil price war (U.S. fracking vs Saudi production) making oil super cheap all of a sudden.
 

richman555

macrumors 6502
Jan 23, 2010
450
214
Collegeville, PA
This is why I continue to support Apple. This is much the same as why I support Chipotle and their 'Food with Integrity'.

Its about time companies become more Ethically responsible.
 

Bigsk8r

macrumors 6502
Nov 28, 2011
342
592
Austin, Texas
Yes, and France is a thorn in the thigh of all the others (Russia too)
They are building one plant right now and have 58 active ones.

Germany will probably never have another one approved. After spending 4 billion dollars to build it, the "fast breeder" in Kalkar never got the permission to go on line. That was actually a joint project of Germany, Holland and Belgium.

It is until today the defining moment of Germany against nuclear power.
After apr. 40 years of a single farmers fight (Being supported by the public) that last nuclear project was scrapped. Being from Germany I followed the fight and was happy that it never got permission.
Drove by there plenty of times.

Every time somebody talks about nuclear energy in Germany, they don't get past submitting plans.

The designers/builders never have deposits covered and the French cores being transported by train secretively in concrete caskets always cause a major action by environmentalists.

In general nuclear may be efficient, but is not safe.

Statistically one can manipulate that number, except one accident and it all goes out the window.

In Europe the continent would be finished.

I just don't see how one can build nuclear reactors in densely populated areas.

As for the US they'll most likely be closing 13 reactors and are building 4 at the moment
ready by apr. 2020.

Same time as the apple car:)

Unfortunately, this is laced with highly biased lack of real fact. The US currently has 99 operational commercial reactors in 61 operating plants. All have operated without incident for over 30 years.

At one point, before the oldest technologies were shut down, there were nearly 120 reactors that had operated for 30 consecutive years without incident. Even 3 Mile Island did not result in the radiation leak feared and it was ancient technology (even for the 70's) and grossly mismanaged.

Fukishima is now held up as the poster child of "why we shouldn't do this" and it's an even worse example. Why? Because it was a 1960's design that withstood 3 times the tectonic movement it was ever designed for. it also withstood a bigger tsunami than it was designed for. The reactor safety systems did their jobs and sealed the cells to the outside world. All that was required was for the circulation pumps to keep cool water running through the heat exchangers so the facility could sit in the scrammed condition. The generators kept that going for quite a while, but ran out of fuel before the crews could get there to refuel them.

Don't make this out like nuclear energy is dangerous and Europe would be doomed. Chernobyl is the worst man made disaster in history after the two nuclear bombs, and it's not like thousands of square miles are now unusable.

At the end of the day, the carbon footprint per Terawatt of energy generated will always be exponentially in nuclear's favor.
 

ttss6

macrumors 6502
Mar 28, 2014
333
58
California
One of the things I hope comes out of Apple doing this is that it sets the standard for other companies to follow. Climate change is not debatable, but the degree to which human activity is. Regardless of which side you are on, is it really that bad of a thing to find way to minimize the amount of damage we cause to our only home?
 

cube

Suspended
May 10, 2004
17,011
4,972
What about the millions of unupgradeable devices they sell? And the millions more from other manufacturers getting on the bandwagon?
 

Michael CM1

macrumors 603
Feb 4, 2008
5,681
276
I'm curious, how is Apple achieving its 100% renewable energy rating? I know they've installed huge banks of solar panels, but those only work during the day. Are they storing enough energy to power their data centers though the night? Or are they drawing from other sources like wind and hydro to make up the difference?

Or, are they over-producing power from solar during the day and then taking back from the grid when solar isn't sufficient?

If the latter, while I applaud their effort, it's not really 100% clean.

That's how it probably works. It depends on the setup. Tesla unveiled those consumer batteries that can store energy and power your house when needed. So in theory you would set up enough solar panels to charge that battery during the day and use the battery when they aren't producing.

It could also just be an offset provided to the power grid. If Apple uses 1.21 gigawatts of power for its datacenter, then it builds enough solar farms to put that back into the grid. If you're using a lot of power from the local power grid but putting the same amount or more back in from a renewable source, the fact that your own electricity probably came from coal or methane plants is really just semantics.

It's a shame more of these companies don't do better, especially if they're based in areas where solar panels are more effective. Hard to blame someone in the Pacific Northwest for not using solar.
 

SgtPepper12

macrumors 6502a
Feb 1, 2011
697
673
Germany
Climate change skeptics are weird people to me. I can totally see how you can find all kinds of scientific-looking plots on the internet supposedly contradicting the idea that it's getting warmer pretty quickly. I used to spend a lot of time trying to sort out these plots and looking for more reliable sources of information when at some point I just stopped caring about the truth. To me, it's not really about the truth. The truth is, we have actually no idea what's going to happen next. This planet is undoubtedly one of the most complex systems known to man.

Use clean, non-fossil energy, be conscious about the finite nature of things, respect the environment etc. I don't know, but sometimes I have the feeling these are beautiful things to do, like completely independent of Climate Change. Those things will make this planet a better place to live, undoubtedly. I really would love to live on a planet with less dirty industry, cars etc. I would love to see people being a little more conscious about the food they are stuffing in themselves every day. Really, even if this whole thing is a scam, I'm alright with it. If scientists all over the world got together to plot this, then it's probably one of the best things scientists plotted to do, let's face it.

I mean, yeah, Climate Change skeptics might see themselves as some sort of fighters for truth or something, but all I can see is people who really don't want something good to happen to this planet for a change. We have much more than we need in first world countries and if there is a reason to mobilize all this to create a better environment to live in for our children, than I'd say we better do that. Who knows, maybe it won't be as easy for generations to come.
 

Lictor

macrumors 6502
Sep 13, 2008
383
21
Nuclear power is more risky than unclean.

It's also dirty, because it produces dangerous wastes we currently have no idea what to do with. So, we just burry them in the ground, hoping the future generations will find a solution.
Also, first generation nuclear power plants are still in use. When they're too old to keep working safely, we have absolutely no idea of how we will dispose of the tons of radioactive stuff at their cores. What's even worse is that there is no budget to handle that, it will be done, if it is possible, only on taxpayers money.

I would not call that a clean energy. Like if you burry your wastes in your garden, it doesn't make them clear. It's merely an energy that is uncleaned in a deferred manner, but ultimately, it is unclean.

----------

Use clean, non-fossil energy, be conscious about the finite nature of things, respect the environment etc. I don't know, but sometimes I have the feeling these are beautiful things to do, like completely independent of Climate Change.

It's also a sensible thing to do from an economic point of view...
Like the US car industry kept making cars that were not energy efficient. As a result, they lost exports. Then, they lost their local market to Japan or Germany. And now, Detroit is a ghost town.
Likewise, oil, coal and all fossil energies are limited. One day or another, they will be exhausted. The countries which will have learnt to work without them will have no problem, but the others will face rising prices and loss of capacity to produce.

Moreover, there is a lot of business opportunities. Energy is cost. For instance, datacenters pay twice the cost of energy : first to power their computers, then to cool them. Energy efficiency is a huge selling point when you do business with datacenters.
Likewise, energy is a cost for corporations. But some architects are able to build positive energy buildings - buildings that produce more energy than they consume. This is also a significant selling point.
The same applies to households : with energy efficient lights or heating, with good isolations, you can cut your bills significantly - I have a friend who divided his energy bills by two. And this makes business specializing in that profitable.
 

prowlmedia

Suspended
Jan 26, 2010
1,589
813
London
Could you please post some reliable sources for that?

----------



It's clean until something goes wrong. When something goes wrong, it is very, very, very unclean.

This is why we need Thorium reactors, which is what we would have now if the research had not stopped in the 1970's as is not weaponisable. It's way safer. Abundant, and did I mention can't be weaponised!

----------

Couldn't care less.

Then you clearly have zero idea what is happening in the world. Perhaps when your Energy bills quadruple you may take notice.
 

santaliqueur

macrumors 65816
Aug 7, 2007
1,014
578
It's clean until something goes wrong. When something goes wrong, it is very, very, very unclean.

And it's the safest energy source the world has ever known.

----------

What about the millions of unupgradeable devices they sell? And the millions more from other manufacturers getting on the bandwagon?

Ah, the ol' twisteroo. So in your fantasy scenario, Apple makes all the devices and people copy them, making Apple the bad guy? What about all the unupgradeable Android trash phones that are sold each year?

This is huge for Apple, and shines a light on every other company to improve. Don't try to twist this into a negative thing.
 

cube

Suspended
May 10, 2004
17,011
4,972
And it's the safest energy source the world has ever known.

----------



Ah, the ol' twisteroo. So in your fantasy scenario, Apple makes all the devices and people copy them, making Apple the bad guy? What about all the unupgradeable Android trash phones that are sold each year?

This is huge for Apple, and shines a light on every other company to improve. Don't try to twist this into a negative thing.

Apple's solar plants and managed forests are lipstick for dummies to try to hide their business model based on planned obsolescence that the rest of the industry has copied.
 

jnpy!$4g3cwk

macrumors 65816
Feb 11, 2010
1,119
1,302
Apple's solar plants and managed forests are lipstick for dummies to try to hide their business model based on planned obsolescence that the rest of the industry has copied.

Apple is certainly not going in my preferred direction lately, but, the ol' 3GS is still working, as are the 2007 MBP and white plastic macbook.

Back OT, I'm quite glad that Apple has avoided using coal-generated electricity for their data centers. Everyone in the world should copy Apple this time.
 

cube

Suspended
May 10, 2004
17,011
4,972
Apple is certainly not going in my preferred direction lately, but, the ol' 3GS is still working, as are the 2007 MBP and white plastic macbook.

Back OT, I'm quite glad that Apple has avoided using coal-generated electricity for their data centers. Everyone in the world should copy Apple this time.

And you talk mostly about old products from before the current "100% throwaway" era.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.