Four Greenpeace activists climbed Apple's Cork Ireland facility and hung protests signs over Apple's energy usage / depending on "Dirty Coal".

http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2012/04/greenpeace_cloud_protest_ireland.jpg

However, Apple has come out with immediate statements saying that Green Peace's Cloud Math is Busted (http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2012/04/17/apple-greenpeaces-cloud-math-is-busted/).

Apple says it will use 20 megawatts of power at full capacity in its North Carolina data center, about one-fifth the amount estimated by Greenpeace in a report that is sharply critical of Apple and other data center operators for relying upon “dirty” energy sources to power their cloud computing operations.

Apple’s statement raises questions about the credibility of the estimates in the Greenpeace report, and illustrates the difficulty of seeking to estimate data center power usage – a detail that many companies are unwilling to disclose on their own.

Greenpeace has estimated that Apple will use 100 megawatts of power at the facility in Maiden, North Carolina. Greenpeace’s Gary Cook used that estimate to downplay the significance of Apple’s substantial investment in on-site renewable power in Maiden, which includes a 20 megawatt solar array and a biogas-powered fuel cell with a 5 megawatt capacity.

I believe Apple and think while they are far from perfect, don't ever get recognized for the continued efforts they have made to improve. They are often by far a lot better in various aspects of being green then their competitors, yet they get the biggest flack and attention.

What do you think?

As usual, Greenpeace is blowing smoke.

wonder how much energy and waste was created with the protests of Greenpeace? foolish organization run by green terrorists..
They created more carbon waste with the protests.. by having police show up - idle their cars until they hire people to get the scaffold trucks to take down the paper, which will not be recycled..

even if Apple's number are wrong it is still more green than the factories in China or India.. I wish greenpeace go there and try that stunt..Then government of China will bill the bullet to the next of kin. Ask questions later LOL

Little bit confused here.

Apple has invested mega $s in one of the most expensive $/watt methods of power generation. They have done so only because it supposedly produces clean power. In this case knowing solar produces full power at best for a third of the day and taking Apple at their word on power requirements, they have reduced their dependence on the grid by about 25-40%. Depends to a certain degree on how often the biogas is running at or near power capacity

If Greenpeace wants to criticize the manufacturing site pollution side effects of Solar power, more power too them. But let's not moan about Apple not making a real effort to reduce CO2 emissions.

Total waste of time for Greenpeace. They are getting wimpier every year! What happened to the good ol' days when they strapped themselves to a boat to protest whaling?

Apple should turn around and sue them for the slandering and also damage/clean up of their building while they are at it.

Little bit confused here.

Apple has invested mega $s in one of the most expensive $/watt methods of power generation. They have done so only because it supposedly produces clean power. In this case knowing solar produces full power at best for a third of the day and taking Apple at their word on power requirements, they have reduced their dependence on the grid by about 25-40%. Depends to a certain degree on how often the biogas is running at or near power capacity

If Greenpeace wants to criticize the manufacturing site pollution side effects of Solar power, more power too them. But let's not moan about Apple not making a real effort to reduce CO2 emissions.

The servers will not be running at full power all the time either, so while they will rely on the grid say from 8pm to 8am, the servers will run at maybe 75% capacity to handle people watching stuff on the Apple TVs in the evening to less than half capacity overnight.

Plus, while coal is dirty, it is easier to install scrubbers etc. to capture carbon dioxide and other particulates in a large scale power plant, plus the machines run at a higher efficiency as well. Maybe not relevant to servers, that's my argument on why electric cars are still better for the environment even if they use coal power compared to internal combustion engine cars.

I don't mind Greenpeace raising an issue as long as they get their facts straight and don't resort to terrorism.

Total waste of time for Greenpeace. They are getting wimpier every year! What happened to the good ol' days when they strapped themselves to a boat to protest whaling?

They should strap themselves to submarines and make everyone happy.

Total waste of time for Greenpeace. They are getting wimpier every year! What happened to the good ol' days when they strapped themselves to a boat to protest whaling?

Problem is Bob Barker has given them millions and now they have no idea what to do with it. :greedy:

Problem is Bob Barker has given them millions and now they have no idea what to do with it. :greedy:

A lot can be said for the impact of what Greenpeace does as compared to their goals. I'm sure that greenpeace used paper that was made from post consumer waste right? Or planted some trees to offset the impact of that paper....right? lol!

But really... I think its harder and harder to anyones real attention now. So maybe they have to resort to these stunts to get their point across...

Oh and with all their money; maybe they can umm invest it in green initiatives. Would speak louder than words if they actually did something towards their goals themselves. And if they already do; maybe they could spread the word better. Rather than **** off and annoy people.

How on earth does greenpeace even begin to make estimates? How do they know what equipment they even have running...idiots... I was gonna leave my seal club at home with me tomorrow but now I'm gonna pack anther out of spite beejacon:D:rolleyes:

Buncha poo heads.

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Problem is Bob Barker has given them millions and now they have no idea what to do with it. :greedy:

Maybe they could bring Lucy the Elephant to North Carolina where she could be used to greet guests at the server farm and go for free elephant rides.

I think Greenpeace and all their hypocritical members are free to go live in a cave. Preferably in the middle of nowhere. How many of their members have iOS devices? How many of them use iCloud? How much do you want to bet that the photos of that building were taken with an iPhone by a Greenpeace member?

You know, the only thing that makes my stomach churn more then hearing about the latest lame ass gimmick these losers are pulling, is reading about it N times on the internet. These people don't do this **** just to do it. They do it because they're attention whores, they love getting their work plastered on the newspaper and TV. They're professional vandals that somehow get away with it, as if this stuff is totally legal when done in the context of a "protest".

Reposting their stories is giving them EXACTLY what they want. Apple shouldn't have done anything in this case, apart from pressing charges of vandalism against whichever ones decided it was a brilliant idea to go and deface private property.

The only way these yahoos are going to go away is if society collectively says "No, we're ignoring you, keep doing your stuff, nobody cares about it anymore". The moment the stories stop rolling, the moment their stunts become a meaningless waste of time- is the moment they'll go away.

-DN

Up until they raise the bar and do something that cant be ignored. These people if you have watched Whale Wars will kindly give their life for a whale. So that may give you context on how far they will go. They are nut jobs with spare time.

AllThingsD (http://allthingsd.com/20120417/greenpeaces-hazy-icloud-numbers/) has a good article about this and how the estimates from Greenpeace are garbage.

I would think that the Greenpeace efforts might be best aimed at the Al Gore Mansion. An AGW high priest, whose personal consumption, requires at least 100 Americans to live at half the national average to counteract his spendthrift ways.

They could TP David Suzuki's place as well. Another do as I say not as I do Guru.

Didn't mean for the thread to be a dump on Greenpeace...

TBH, I don't know too much about Greenpeace.

It kind of irks me, I believe the concept behind Greenpeace is really good. I think they have done good pressuring Apple and the industry to be more environmentally sound. I don't think Apple get's the recognition for the strides they have made with packaging and materials they use.

It is an important issue, just like I believe how we treat animals is important, it just seems like the important issues kind of get hijacked by un-knowledgable extremes from groups like PETA. They perhaps mean well, but they get their facts really wrong, and go to such extremes, the message get's lost and they lose credibility.

I think it's important for Apple and the whole industry to be taken to task where they can do better, but clearly the message and cause get's lost when it's not based on sound data.

I think it's important for Apple and the whole industry to be taken to task where they can do better, but clearly the message and cause get's lost when it's not based on sound data.

That's just the problem. They choose the biggest target, calculate the worst possible scenario and run with it without really looking how it really is. If they went after the worst offenders I'm not sure anyone would care because the worst offenders aren't the biggest companies that everyone knows about, and even if they are? No one cares as much what HP or Dell or Lenovo does because no one has as much of an attachment to those companies.