Apple: Greenpeace's Cloud Critique Driven By Bogus Numbers 188
miller60 writes "Apple says Greenpeace has wildly overestimated the amount of power it uses in its data center in North Carolina, and used that bad math to give the company a low grade on sustainability. Apple says it uses 20 megawatts of power at its iDataCenter, a fraction of Greenpeace's estimate of 100 megawatts in a new report on energy use by cloud computing providers. Apple says that its huge solar array and biogas-powered fuel cell will supply 60 percent of the facility's power, not the 10 percent claimed by Greenpeace."
What it really means: (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple: blah blah blah blah good good good
The truth? Probably somewhere in the middle.
Re:What it really means: (Score:5, Insightful)
Greenpeace is more than happy to distort the truth for propaganda purposes. They've said in the past that the whole reason they single out Apple is because it makes good news. And they are right.
Re:What it really means: (Score:5, Insightful)
"Distort" the truth? Hell, they just made up some numbers and went with that as the "reasoning" for their rant.
But as usual with Greenpeace, it's 99% bullshit believed by no one except the Greenpeace faithful.
And from what I see, the Greenpeace faithful do definitely qualify as a cult, complete with wingnut behaviour.
Re:Greenpeace is not credible (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely true. The real intelligent green thinkers are working with the system to make things better in baby steps - the only way things can change. We don't generally notice these people, but they do make a difference.
Greenpeace is anti-system and falls into tired false extremist eco groupthink, which obviously isn't very productive.
Re:What it really means: (Score:5, Insightful)
No, actually, Greenpeace can pull numbers out of their ass all day long, and few people challenge them on it, because "it's for a good cause", and "they're just trying to save the planet", etc. The whole "somewhere in the middle" has more relevance when you're talking about arguments with lots of grey areas. We're talking about simple numbers here. Greenpeace made a bunch of guesses on the numbers involved, and they've been called out on their very bad estimates and incorrect assumptions.
Apple has all the number they need for a very accurate reading on power usage. Unless you're going to accuse Apple of out and out falsifying those numbers (it would be an incredibly stupid thing to do, as one whistleblower would blow the lid on this), then I'm going to have to side with Apple here as being closer to "the truth".
Why does anyone listen to Greenpeace anymore? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What it really means: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What it really means: (Score:5, Insightful)
I love the Greenpeace "response to the response" where they doubt the numbers Apple bring forth:
While Apple is well known for making more expensive consumer products, if Apple’s plans for the $ 1Billion investment only generates 20MW in power demand, that would be taking the “Apple premium” to a whole new level.
So first "we want them to stop cutting corners and spend money to make green energy"
Now: "darn, these fools seem to be spending too much money to save up energy, must mean they are lying!"
Re:Greenpeace is not credible (Score:5, Insightful)
To meet girls with "evolved" morality. Who would let me touch them, without clothing. Basically, for tail.
Re:Excellent... (Score:5, Insightful)
too true. What would be really shocking news is if we found that for once greenpeace was NOT lying to get attention. And it's not just Apple. Basic M.O. for these schmucks is to simply pick whatever company is big in the news at the moment and then give that company a bad "rating" based on some imaginary numbers on some arbitrary scale.
For several years in a row when the Wii was at it's popularity peak, the greenpeace "report card" gave Nintendo a failing grade -- for the sole reason that Nintendo had the common sense to ignore them, and refused to give any detailed information about their business operations. Thus, in the mind of the eco-nuts the company *had* to be hiding something horrible, and thus was *clearly* an eco-failure.
Re:What it really means: (Score:2, Insightful)
And there are a good many scientists that have become environmentalists and left science behind. HOWEVER, because they were scientists once in the past many people figure they can be trusted as accurate in the present. But then again there are scientists who have admitted they made extreme and/or incorrect statements to get their papers accepted by the IPCC and keep their funding so I say to heck with the lot of them when it comes to climate/environment/et al.
Just accept that humanity is just another animal on the planet, that it's a top level predator and its numbers are going to be curtailed in the same way any other top level predator's are, by overusing its resources. Life will adapt, with or without us, and carry on. It's not a steady state system and never has been.
Re:Greenpeace is not credible (Score:5, Insightful)
Could've saved yourself a lot of aggregation by just throwing a keg party.
Decent place to post Greenpeace's response: (Score:3, Insightful)
All the frothing against environmentalists in this thread aside, GP does have an interesting response to Apple's denial... [greenpeaceblogs.com]
While it is good to see Apple acknowledge it should reveal more details of the energy consumption of its data centers, the information they released today does not add up with what they have reported to be the size of the investment and physical size of the data center. When Apple announced they were building a data center in North Carolina, they announced a commitment to invest $1 Billion (USD) over 10 years. For a number of the facilities in the “How Clean is Your Cloud?” report, we made estimates of power demand using fairly conservative industry benchmarks for data center investments: 1MW of power demand from servers for every $15 million, though the number is often closer to $8 Million for many companies. Thus, a $1B investment should net Apple 66MW of computer power demand. Assuming a fairly standard energy efficiency factor for new data centers for non-computer energy demand of 50% gives you a 100MW data center. While Apple is well known for making more expensive consumer products, if Apple’s plans for the $ 1Billion investment only generates 20MW in power demand, that would be taking the “Apple premium” to a whole new level.
Size Matters
The size of the facility at 500,000 sq foot would also indicate a much larger power demand. Amazon’s chief web engineer recently conservatively estimated that based just on the size of the facility, the iDatacenter would consume at least 78MW, and speculated that it is probably higher.
We made these estimates because companies like Apple and Amazon have not disclosed details of how much energy data centers use now and will in the future. We provided Apple with our data prior to releasing the “How Clean is Your Cloud?” report, and while they did not agree with our estimate, they declined to provide specific information on their energy demand.
My short summary of the argument is that in this case Apple is trying to use secrecy to avoid public scrutiny, and Greenpeace has done their due diligence. Frankly, if Apple won't communicate with an enviro group as large as Greenpeace on matters of waste and power consumption, then it is Apple's attitude and business model that I have to question.
Re:What it really means: (Score:4, Insightful)
Fuck. I hate agreeing with Apple.
Now I hate Greenpeace even more for making me side with Apple.
Re:What it really means: (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone once gave me a piece of advice many, many times.
At the time I hated him for telling me this in the end though I understood and am a better person for it.
"It doesn't fucking matter how you feel."
"It doesn't fucking matter what you think."
"It only matters what you do."
Re:What it really means: (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? Are you so emotionally tied up into a belief pattern that it actually bothers you to look at data and come to the same conclusion as Apple?
Maybe you should reflect on that.
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