Greenpeace

Greenpeace demands a cleaner iCloud at Apple's corporate campus.

Since April, the environmental organization Greenpeace has had a bull’s-eye on Apple in its campaign to clean up the Internet “Cloud” that stores our music, apps, and photos. It’s accused Apple of using high-carbon “dirty fuels” like coal to power its new data center in North Carolina and has used dramatic pranks and slick videos to get consumers involved.

Last week, members of Greenpeace barricaded themselves in a giant iPod at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters and dressed as giant iPhones to demand a cleaner iCloud. Two days later, in a rare demonstration of transparency, Apple released a detailed statement explaining how its new data center would be 100% green. The whole drama made me curious to learn how the Cloud’s power source and growth could impact the environment.

So I paid a visit to Dennis Symanski at the Electric Power Research Institute (or EPRI) in Palo Alto. He’s an expert in energy efficiency and power delivery. He described the Cloud as a giant system of servers in remote data centers that store your electronic data, and estimates the Cloud uses between 2-3% of electric power consumed in the United States.

That may not sound like much but Symanski says that “small” percentage amounts to about 92 Billion kilowatt-hours per year – enough to power 7.6 million homes, double that of sprawling L.A. County.

He says it’s impossible to say exactly what the Cloud’s carbon footprint is, but some experts say that consolidating data in vast data centers can result in greater efficiencies and a smaller footprint than traditional computing.

Alison van Diggelen

EPRI's Dennis Symanski shows how fans work hard to keep the servers and the chips inside from overheating inside a data center.

Symanski invited me to visit a small data center he oversees at EPRI and I saw what energy hogs these “server farms” can be. Fans run 24/7 to keep the pizza box shaped servers, and the chips inside them, from overheating. There are so many fans in this 187 kilowatt data center, even Symanski doesn’t have an accurate count.

This one is a tiny fraction of the 20 megawatt data center Apple recently built in North Carolina to house its iCloud.

But it’s more than the energy guzzling that concerns Greenpeace. It accuses Apple of relying too much on “dirty” energy like coal from local utility Duke Energy and says Apple is misleading the public about its future iCloud power demands. The campaign is a lesson in effective social media and includes upbeat Apple-inspired videos featuring trendy young people doing cool things with their Macs and iPhones and then getting showered with coal dust.

I spoke with Greenpeace senior IT analyst, Gary Cook who explained the rationale of its “Clean our Cloud” campaign.

“If Apple, along with other IT companies, went to Duke (Energy) and said what you’re selling isn’t good enough…we don’t want to be buying coal from mountaintop removal, we want clean energy,” he says. “Duke would have to listen and that would actually drive green power on the grid for everyone.”

But not everyone is thrilled about the Greenpeace campaign and publicity stunts. Some Apple fans have accused Greenpeace of “doing a Mike Daisey” on Apple. Daisey is the commentator who invented stories to highlight dangerous working conditions at Apple’s Chinese factories.

Some say Greenpeace is asking too much of the world’s most valuable company.

“Before you know it we’ll be asking them to feed the hungry also,” says Sandeep Grag, a Silicon Valley engineer.

Gary Cook says Greenpeace has no interest in misrepresenting the facts. “We’re just trying to shine a light on who’s doing well and who needs to do better as they grow their cloud,” he says.

Alison van Diggelen

Just a few of the fans that help cool the pizza box shaped servers at EPRI's data center in Palo Alto. Photo: Alison van Diggelen

And the cloud is growing rapidly. The more we share online, the faster the cloud must expand. According to research by Cisco Systems, by the end of 2011, 20 households created as much Internet traffic as the entire Internet in 2008. IT energy experts say the cloud will double in the next 3 to 7 years.

That’s one of the reasons Greenpeace is targeting companies that rely on the cloud. Its “Unfriend Coal” Campaign against Facebook led the social network to commit to clean energy for its future data centers. The environmental group also praises Google’s clean energy leadership for investing millions in solar and wind power. In recent weeks, Greenpeace has also targeted Microsoft and Amazon, demanding they use renewable energy to power their Clouds.

Yet despite Apple’s announcement last week, Greenpeace says the smartphone maker can still do more to ensure the cloud gets cleaner as it grows and wants to see a data center siting policy that prioritizes clean energy.

“They have been transformational in almost every other sector they’ve touched and now we need them to accept that challenge …and drive transformation in the energy sector,” says Cook.

On May 17, Apple explained how its new data center will be 100% clean powered by the end of 2012. It will produce 60% from onsite Sunpower solar arrays and Bloom Energy fuel cells, said to be the largest private installations of their kind in the U.S. The remainder will come from local renewable energy purchases. It promises: no more coal.

In a section entitled “Accountability and Transparency” Apple even invites the public to follow its clean energy production at the North Carolina Renewable Energy Tracking System.

It would be naive to conclude that the Greenpeace campaign forced Apple to be greener overnight. These clean energy plans have obviously been in development for many months. But it does look like the campaign helped nudge Apple towards greater transparency in its environmental leadership. That’s something that should please all environmentalists.

An Apple spokeswoman points to the company’s new LEED Platinum data center in North Carolina which she says will be the greenest in the world. Or as Steve Jobs might have said, “insanely green.”

Hear the entire radio story, airing May 23 on The California Report.

Bloom Energy

Caltech needed more generation capacity to meet the demands of its energy-intensive research.

Sunnyvale-based Bloom Energy made a big splash in 2010 when it came out of stealth mode – on the CBS program 60 Minutes no less – and announced its high-efficiency fuel cell, spawned by a NASA project for Mars. It has earned an impressive roster of clients including Google, eBay and Walmart.

But beyond the inevitable skeptics, the really big catch? “Bloom Boxes,” as the fuel cells have been dubbed, have a price tag of around $700,000. Hardly affordable for all but the largest companies with plenty of cash.

Yet California Institute of Technology, the private research university generally known as Caltech, had twenty Bloom Boxes installed on its Pasadena campus in 2010. Each box now produces 100 kilowatts of electricity for a total of two megawatts capacity; or 17% of the university’s electricity demand.

Here’s where the affordability play comes in. Instead of buying the boxes outright and incurring a hefty up-front cost, Caltech signed up for the Bloom Electrons Service, a power purchase agreement to buy power at a predictable price for the term of the contract (usually ten years). John Onderdonk, Director of Sustainability Programs at Caltech wouldn’t divulge its pricing or term details but said, “It is more cost-effective than the power we would otherwise purchase from the grid.”

And cleaner, too. The fuel cells are fed with directed biogas – methane captured from landfills, a low-carbon renewable energy source and, as Onderdonk explains, this source is preferable to energy from the local utility which gets about 60% of its power from a coal power plant in Utah.

State and Federal incentives accruing to Bloom Energy smoothed the way for the agreement, and these incentives allowed Bloom to provide the university with a lower rate than its local utility charges, Onderdonk confirmed.

So, why did Caltech feel compelled to pursue a clean energy solution to its increasing energy needs? Part of the answer lies in California’s existing climate legislation. Onderdonk explained that Caltech is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions in accordance with AB 32, the landmark climate change legislation which puts in place a series of caps and market mechanisms to reduce total greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. But the impetus goes beyond the State of California.

“It is important for us that our administration and operation of campus reflect the world-class research into climate change and sustainable energy technology that is occurring on the academic side of the organization,” the Sustainability Director added.

Onderdonk also says the Bloom solution resonates with Caltech’s NASA connection.

“The fundamental technology in the Bloom fuel cells was originally conceived as part of NASA’s mission to Mars,” explains Onderdonk. “So we felt a connection to the technology given our involvement with operating the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA.”

In addition, like any climate-minded organization, Caltech is also pursuing the low-hanging fruit of the energy equation: energy conservation.  Beyond its Bloom Boxes and 1.3 megawatts of photovoltaic solar, the university pursues an aggressive program to implement energy conservation in its existing buildings and construct new buildings that maximize energy efficiency. “All energy conservation projects are funded through a revolving loan fund, whereby capital is borrowed from our ($1.77B) endowment and utility savings are reinvested back into the endowment,” Onderdonk explained. “This model is unique in the nation and we are currently getting about 30% [return] on those projects.”

A 30% return? That’s the kind of yield that would make any fund manager swoon, especially in this challenging economy.

As for Bloom Energy, it’s staying tight-lipped about its returns and still has some challenges to overcome before its Bloom Boxes start blossoming in the backyards of homes and commercial buildings all over the world – the bold vision of cofounder and CEO of Bloom Energy, KR Sridhar, the former NASA scientist.

The key to mass market adoption remains affordability. As Sridhar told me in a 2010 interview. “If it’s not affordable, it’ll be the niche market — it’ll be a Tesla.  We need it to be a Honda Civic.”