Apple: from 35% to 75% renewable energy in two years

All it takes is the will to get it done, and Apple is doing it: from 35% renewable energy in 2010 to 75% in 2012, and 100% at all Apple data centers. Cost? They’ll save more than they spent. Time for Georgia Power and Southern Company to stop dragging their feet and help us get on with it in Georgia.

Peter Burrows wrote for Bloomberg Thursday that Apple got nudged:

A year ago, Apple was targeted by Greenpeace International, which ranked Apple 12th out of 14 large technology companies in a report called “How Clean Is Your Cloud?” The environmental group, which held protests at Apple’s offices in Cupertino, California, charged Apple with relying on electricity from coal plants and gave Apple a grade of no better than D in the four categories it tracked.

“Increasing our use of renewable energy is our primary objective,” Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s chief financial officer, said in an interview. “We think these efforts will result in learnings that other companies and communities can benefit from as well.”

Apple’s announcement shows “real progress,” Greenpeace said, urging the company disclose more detail on how it’s working with utilities and state governments to achieve its energy goals.

Transparency on types of energy received and used, like North Carolina’s Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) Tracking System that enabled the solar power industry in NC. Georgia could be working towards that by passing HB 503 (minus the bogus biomass parts). That would make a lot more sense than listening to ALEC trying to prevent or repeal renewable portfolio standards.

Among many wakeup calls for Georgia, An Arizona State University study two years ago ranked George #3 among states that could benefit most from solar power, both for internal use and for export for profit. Here’s another wakeup call: the NRC for the first time ever denied a nuclear license and several existing nukes are closing, while many others will not be built. It’s time for Georgia Power and Southern Company to cancel their three-legged nuclear regulatory-capture boondoggle for those already-15-months-late and $1-billion-over nukes on the Savannah River so those companies can lead us in solar power inland and wind off the coast instead of dragging us backwards. If they won’t do it, others will, as just demonstrated by the 1 megawatt solar groundbreaking at Dublin High School financed by municipal bonds.

-jsq