Environmental Groups Accuse Amazon of 'Distorting the Truth' in Latest Clean-Energy Claim (engadget.com) 54
An anonymous reader shares a report: On Wednesday, Amazon claimed that it reached its goal of sourcing all its power from clean energy sources in the past year. If taken at face value, the announcement would mean it hit the milestone seven years ahead of schedule, which would be a monumental achievement. But environmental experts speaking to The New York Times, including a group of concerned Amazon employees, warn that the company is "misleading the public by distorting the truth." The company's claim of achieving 100 percent clean electricity is based in part on billion-dollar investments in over 500 solar and wind initiatives. The company's logic is that the energy these projects generate equals the electricity its data centers consume -- ergo, even Steven. But the renewable energy sources it uses for those calculations are fed into a general power grid, not exclusively into Amazon's operations. Environmental experts caution that the company is using "accounting and marketing to make itself look good," as The New York Times put it.
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However, nothing you do will appease some folks. If you put green energy (stupid name) into the system at the same rate you use electricity, the overall grid is still using a "green" power source it wouldn't if they hadn't built their inefficient power generators. So they deserve whatever credit they're warranted by generating as much energy as they promised. Personally I shrug and don't care
Indeed every story I read like this makes me care even less, which is already pretty close to zero.
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Excellent point. However, nothing you do will appease some folks. If you put green energy (stupid name) into the system at the same rate you use electricity, the overall grid is still using a "green" power source it wouldn't if they hadn't built their inefficient power generators. So they deserve whatever credit they're warranted by generating as much energy as they promised. Personally I shrug and don't care, but in the grand scheme of things my opinion doesn't matter, so all is well!
I think the issue here is honesty. Amazon could have made an announcement saying they were breaking even on "clean" energy consumption, then explained themselves. But some marketing genius (i.e. paid liar) decided it sounded better to just say they are 100% on clean energy.
We need to, collectively, as a species, start punishing this type of lying. I realize that means billions of marketing and sales people will either need to retrain, or find new jobs, but tough fucking luck. We're lying our way into killin
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hair splitting (Score:4)
I think at this point, everyone understands that this is what they mean. There are very few projects that are entirely running out of renewable energies.
Most of them are tied to the grid and overall produce more renewable energy into the grid than they consume grid energy. It is still an important milestone.
And it is also pretty much the only reasonnable way to do this. You probably do not want independent renewable energy power plant to only be connected to a single factory or data center. You would either have to store massive amount of energy to account for renewable down time, or you would need to over produce energy and waste it somehow.
Might as well put energy in the grid where it can be used, and minimize the use of batteries which are bound to be less efficient.
It's a silly distraction (Score:2)
It does very very little for the commercial viability of renewable power, that comes almost entirely from goverment market intervention and high gas prices. Amazon&co just add cents on the dollar to be first in line to claim the output.
By running these programs Amazon/Apple/etc disguise the true nature of the problem, they aren't helping.
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It might be the 'only reasonable way' but the problems is we have to listen to
'derp derp we can meet all our needs with renewables'
'derp the oil company and the nat gas plant are evil derp derp'
While the reality is renewables are not solving the actual reliability and distribution problems that exist. I don't give a fly'ing f***K what nonsense 'research' you want to cite for why not either. We have for the last decades had massive abundances of available capital. - holly hell large corps were paying NEGAT
Re: hair splitting (Score:2, Flamebait)
Sorry I quit reading when you self censored. Either say fuck or don't.
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If renewables were really cheaper, if the reliability and distributions issues were actually solved and just required 'investment' we'd have them in place already without the need for any 'Green New Deal'
This is a terribly bad argument, because you're only considering the immediate, short term cost of energy production. However, fossil fuel use doesn't only create energy. It also creates pollution, CO2, radioactive ashes (coal) or radioactive waste (nuclear). All those secondary effects affect everybody, and we can see in real time how those secondary costs keep growing and growing (growing damage from larger and more frequent hurricanes, effects on agriculture, social costs, deaths from hotter and hotter w
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No, I do not think "everyone understands that this is what they mean." I think that too many people believe that you can have all-renewable grids. You can, but you have to build out truly massive amounts of storage to make it work. i.e. Water Reservoirs. You know, those things hydroelectric dams use so that their output is not crap most of the time (and other reasons)? And that environmentalists want to destroy/remove?
This problem is solved by its very nature by fuel-based systems, as the fuel IS the
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No, I do not think "everyone understands that this is what they mean." I think that too many people believe that you can have all-renewable grids. You can, but you have to build out truly massive amounts of storage to make it work. i.e. Water Reservoirs.
Solar requires massive amounts of storage. Hydro and wind do not. A sufficiently high-capacity, geographically distributed grid can theoretically be powered entirely by renewable power without storage as long as you focus on hydro and wind power. The problem is that nobody wants to build a sufficiently high-capacity (read "low-resistance"), geographically distributed grid, and nobody wants a giant wind farm in their back yard.
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>> nobody wants a giant wind farm in their back yard
Fortunately most of middle America has great wind and almost nobody lives there.
https://windexchange.energy.go... [energy.gov]
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Take that map of the "wind corridor" and overlay that with "tornado alley".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I have an idea on what will happen to your precious windmills in time.
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Hydro is storage.
Depends on what you mean by storage. Yes, hydro usually has a reservoir to store water to even out the flow rate. That's rather different than storing electrical energy, though (notwithstanding the fact that you can build systems in which you pump water uphill to convert electricity into kinetic energy and then convert at least some of it back into electricity).
And it should be noted that hydroelectric power does not inherently require a reservoir. There are plenty of run-of-the-river hydroelectric gener
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>> too many people believe that you can have all-renewable grids
Who are these people? Can you point to some evidence?
What I see are people that merely want to seriously increase the percentage of renewable energy and that is definitely feasible.
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What I see are people that merely want to seriously increase the percentage of renewable energy and that is definitely feasible.
Increase it by how much? How much is beyond reasonable?
I also see people that want an all renewable energy supply. These people have come up with studies to prove it possible. Given the data I believe that an all renewable energy supply is possible. The problem with their studies to make their proof is they make no comparison to alternatives. What of a mix of nuclear fission and renewable sources like that being tried in France. Japan, or South Korea?
While it is feasible to get all of our energy from w
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>> expect people to turn to the alternative that has nuclear fission
No sign of that now or anywhere on the horizon.
https://cleantechnica.com/2024... [cleantechnica.com]
"the mix of renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower,
solar, wind) provided nearly all new U.S. generating capacity in April as well
as year-to-date (YTD). Renewable energy sources are now nearly 30% of total
capacity. Moreover, for the eighth month in a row, solar was the largest new
source of generating capacity. "
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There are people who model the grid to determine the level of storage needed to support renewables. I live in Australia, and so I track this guy: David Osmond [x.com]
Each week he publishes a simulation of the entire NEM (National Energy Market) to determine the renewable/FF mix based on just 5 hours of storage. For the last 150 weeks, he calculates a 98% RE mix, with just 2% fossil fuels required.
So it may not require as much storage as you think.
Granted, the law of diminishing returns says that the last 2% of
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"But even so, it's not costly to get close." You're actually proving my point. Unless you get that last 2%, the costs of everything else is still just "extra, could have been spent on better FF cleanliness/ethics/whatever." When you're in those 2% times, you either have the gas plant, or you have rolling blackouts. That should never be acceptable. That some consider it is shows the level of delusion.
Or just nuclear. Fission. Fusion (go Helion!). Thorium fission. Whatever. The amount spent on thos
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Totally disagree. If you can eliminate 95% of current fossil fuel burning needed to generate electricity, and replace it with clean power plus some battery, you're basically done. Win. Throw that ticker tape parade.
To require something to be a 100%, in all cases, no matter what, solution to even be considered... that is delusional.
Once you've reduced power production to 5% of the fossil fuels (and C02 production) that are needed today, you can move on and solve the next problem. Just like optimizing cod
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We're going to have to agree to disagree over this. I, and I think most others, would consider 98% carbon reduction significantly better than 0% carbon reduction.
I also don't see many people on the pro-renewables front accepting of rolling blackouts, either. This has significant ramifications for vulnerable people, hospitals, etc. We all have elderly loved-ones that this would affect. I'd like if you could point out any public utterances of some that consider it acceptable.
And we'll also have to agree
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"the renewable energy sources it uses for those calculations are fed into a general power grid, not exclusively into Amazon's operations."
Electrons are all the same. The only trickery would be if Amazon has to ignore transmission losses in order to claim parity. It would be inefficient, environmentally damaging, and just plain stupid for them to string private power lines from areas of efficient green energy production to all of their sites.
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Agreed. What does it matter if I build a solar farm right next to my fulfillment centre, or someplace else (but still on the same grid). The actual electrons don't really care. They're fungible.
Carbon Credits (Score:1, Troll)
Environmental Groups are forcing everyone to question their intelligence, since it appears they think the concept of corporations buying carbon credits fell off the back of an oil barge last week.
Are they actually that ignorant? This is like a stock broker not knowing about hedge funds.
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Carbon credits is just corporate speak for "please, please, PLEASE don't implement a carbon tax, we will do any type of environmental performance art you want if you don't do that"
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Not even that, it's just a tiny percentage of companies. The whole reason it can be affordable is because almost no one does it, Amazon/Apple/etc aren't going to pay for seasonal storage solutions. It's the same with grand standing DEI initiatives, some managers think it's expected of them.
Goverment doesn't care one way or another, even customers don't really care. It's just a silly game for managers.
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There is not nor will there ever be a "carbon tax" on companies, it is a tax on *consumers*, and not having that tax is a very good thing.
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Sortof? But the idea od externalities is that there is an indirect cost that must be paid regardless, so we are already paying, it's just a matter of who and where is collecting, without a tax the polluters get to offload that cost onto the rest of us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Unless you want to make the case that carbon pollution does not in fact cause any negative externalities? That's valid but I think the evidence is against you there.
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Environmental Groups are forcing everyone to question their intelligence
I guess they will just have to keep throwing soup on art works till we all realize how smart they really are. LOL.
Indeed! I read the Amazon reviews of the weather (Score:2)
and it gets 4.8 stars. I'm absolutely convinced there's zero issues with the weather.
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Too much sun out today, not what i ordered: 1 star
Of course they're lying. (Score:2)
This is what happens when we lack any meaningful systems or oversight to keep people and companies honest. We can cry about becoming carbon-neutral, but without meaningful, traceable, deep analytics, it's all PR, which means a shell game, where
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Your drowning might convince you that there is a real problem, but that might not be enough to get a single fact into your empty skull. Either way the rest of us would be better off.
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>> The intensity, frequency, and variability of storms hasn't changed.
Who told you that? Sure it has.
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It's called observation. I've lived in south Florida my whole life. Not everything must be "told" to you.
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Maybe aren't observing what is actually going on.
https://www.wusf.org/local-sta... [wusf.org]
“Right now, Floridians pay arguably the highest average premium in the U.S.,” he said.
Friedlander said the average Florida homeowner is paying $4,231 for their property insurance, which is nearly triple the national rate of $1,544.
The growing cost of catastrophes has led to increased rates across the country. In Florida, the roughly $60 billion in insured losses from Hurricane Ian and the fact many insurers have le
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Are you in Florida and making direct observations as well or relying on media nonsense?
Don't care. You only need to have insurance (which is a scam) if you have a mortgage. I thankfully buy all my properties cash. The out-of-pocket expenses of fixing my house after whatever random storm hits (which have always h
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>> you'll find another way to discount first hand observations though
All I've seen from you is a completely unsubstantiated claim, not an 'observation'.
Meanwhile I don't care if you have insurance or not. The fact is that rates have jumped way up because of the increased risk of climate-related disasters.
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You're hilarious, the flooding in Florida is due to overdevoloped beachfront but you can keep us entertained being a dewm boi.
Wail some more for us. Or holler up the stairs for mommy to buy you a pizza to feel better and not be such an emo.
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Move to Florida NOW. Then get ready to be inundated by a series of storms with floods of biblical proportions this summer. Or Texas, Louisiana, or anywhere on the gulf coast.
Your drowning might convince you that there is a real problem, but that might not be enough to get a single fact into your empty skull. Either way the rest of us would be better off.
Or just come to South Dakota. We have 100 year floods about twice a year now. And this year, the flood waters are receding so slowly that we have what's basically a plague of mosquitos. You can't step outside without completely covering yourself, or you'll spend every second swatting at the bastards. I made the mistake of wearing shorts when I mowed last weekend and my legs are essentially two giant mosquito mounds now. It's worse than when I used to live in Minnesota in a small town with seven lakes throug
Dang (Score:2)
Amazon can do no right, in some eyes.
If they generate as much clean energy as they use, then I'd say that's good enough. I mean if everybody did that, we'd be fine right?
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I mean, reaching absolute zero would be better than net zero (because net zero doesn't necessarily mean carbon neutral). But net zero is still a massive milestone. As much as I dislike Amazon, they should definitely be acknowledged for the effort they're putting in. And especially since they seem to be doing it without playing shifty games carbon offset games [greenpeace.org].
It comes back to fluctuating power (Score:2)
Meanwhile (Score:2)
What is wrong here? (Score:2)
The accounting numbers are perfectly fine to use here. If I generate 1kWh of green energy and export it to the grid, and use 1kWh of unknown energy elsewhere in my operations, how is my operation not 100% green?
energy is fungible (Score:2)
If Amazon consumes 50 megawatts of power, but generates 50 megawatts of green power to the usable grid elsewhere, they're right.
It's funny the greens resist this, it's EXACTLY the logic they use to justify indulgences, er, "carbon credits".