Posted on 09/14/2012 2:19:54 PM PDT by Uncle Chip
Huge, ugly and cluttered, it is almost the antithesis of Apple's iconic design style.
Apple has almost finished work on a massive solar farm next to its data centre in North Carolina, hoping to boost its green credentials - but scarring the landscape with a 100-acre eyesore at the same time.
Organisations such as Greenpeace have, in the past, accused Apple of hurting the environment by using coal to power these centres.
Apple's data centres keep the world's iPhones running - syncing contacts to the 'iCloud' and storing a wealth of information on each user.
When completed, Apple’s 100-acre, 20-megawatt facility will supply 42 million kWh of energy annually, and is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to construct.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
An above-ground, bird-killing version of the “Big Dig”.
I couldn't care less if they waste their money. I just pointed out that solar generally is a poor investment.
Likewise. I bought a “backpacker’s solar panel” for camping/survival. Realized the hard way that even given sufficient sunlight, just getting enough direct exposure long enough is impractical. 8+ hours of full sun? ya know how many times you’ll have to move it out of the progressing shade? or how little time you’ll spend in that location? EIGHT HOURS is a LONG time to assure direct sunlight on an object. Easy enough for a large fixed facility where they can cut down all the trees and use sun-tracking repositioning equipment, but HARD for an individual on the move. Even if you do manage to, you then have to worry about someone just plain stealing it.
Wrong. The Big Dig was government money. This is Apple’s money. They are one of the most innovative companies in the world. If they want to make this investment, why is everyone throwing rocks at them? Whats long with a little experimentation?
100 acres at about 50% coverage from the picture producing 20-megawatts = 100 watts/m^2, or about 10% maximum efficiency in solar conversion.
42 million kWh at about 10¢ per kWh = $4.2 million of electricity for hundreds of millions of dollars of investment? Even at $200 million that will take a 50 year payoff, not counting maintenance. Environmental smugness better be worth it for Apple because the electricity isn't.
Although it is nice that solar power is beginning to get into the right neighborhood on cost. Drop it by a factor of 4 and it will be worth it for supplemental power for the house.
Covering 5% of Arizona would supply enough power for the U.S.
Assuming that is even so, it would be very expensive power and still need backup power.
What do you have for storeage and transmission? Or is that just some “green” sci-fi theory?
Yes, there are mucho costs and engineering challenges. But it is one key piece of the energy puzzle, along with coal, oil, nuclear, etc. I also think Tesla's theories should be re-explored.
And if the wind blows too hard they have to stop the windmills.
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