14 DAY TRIAL // The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg has a good report on Apple's new solar-powered Data Center. The reader / viewer is taken behind the operations of the iCloud and the sapphire plant.
The paper is describing Apple as a company that’s working to "green its act." Not only has the tech giant left nuclear and fuel power aside, but they have gone all-solar in North Carolina for their iCloud data center. The next step is to go green for the sapphire plant in Arizona.
The story is guided by Apple's Vice President of Environmental initiatives, Lisa Jackson. Apple is using over 55,000 solar panels in their North Carolina facility. The state laws do not allow them to harness and use that energy, so they have to inject into the grid and then buy the energy they're using for free, in exchange for the given one.
The story makes the case of an Apple from a few years ago that was one of the bad guys when it comes to energy consumption. In April of 2012, a Greenpeace report said Apple was still using coal to power their plants and the pollution was taking them onto the offenders list. Now all of that has changed.
Apple only has one green solar farms in use, but they will add two more in the near future. Their data center sucks 160 million kWh and that's the equivalent of 13,000 US homes. The next step for them is to work on making sure the supply chain companies that work for the Cupertino giant are just as green with their power consumption.
Lisa Jackson explains how Apple is taking care of their products and makes sure they are "green" all the way through their life cycle. In 2013, over 70 percent of their greenhouse gas emissions were from the manufacturing plants and the second largest number was generated by the product usage. On the other hand, Apple doesn't own the factories in China, so they have to convince their partners in that part of the world to change the way they work.
When it comes to the sapphire plant Apple is currently building in Arizona, they’re working to install solar and geothermal power at the factory located in the city of Mesa. The local governor has praised Apple for their initiatives, but his voice was less strong than the voice of activists talking about the suppliers' factories in China. The Asian plants are relying on coal burning to power the cloud.
Apple is supposedly going to use sapphire in their iPhone 6 displays or, at least, have a way to coat regular glass with a thin layer of sapphire to make it stronger and scratch-resistant.
