[joshio]

Come on, what kind of utopia are you living in?

Apple's core business is not environment protection, it's development of technology and applications for that tech.

That they're using the vehicle that is Apple to push for green energy is remarkable, putting pressure on the other giants. But this kind of expectation, that they should move away from the Mecka of tech devs. in order to push the envelope further would only lessen the net impact on their environmental work..

[ghfbjdhhv]

It would help if they just moved near a Caltrain station.

See: what Google is doing in SJ.

[rgovostes]

There are or were offices at Sunnyvale Caltrain station. They also have shuttles that regularly service Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and Diridon stations; the ride should only be 10-15 minutes. However, I do not think Caltrain has the capacity for tens of thousands of new commuters.

[joshio]

I'm not sure how frequent these stations are but from the overview of the size of the new Apple campus, it's not too easy finding a lot large enough to just drop it down where it's convenient. Not accounting for zoning laws etc.

[realusername]

> Come on, what kind of utopia are you living in?

In the past you know, big industrial companies built large-scale residential areas for workers, it's not an utopia.

[joshio]

That was not the point I was trying to make, some of the best developers in the world live in the San Jose area.

To build a new campus in the middle of nowhere and build housing there would never be a valid solution.

Maybe for a second campus, like they're planning. But that one is rumoured to be put in Austin where, you guessed it, the density of a skilled workforce is high.

[apsec112]

There's nothing "remarkable" about a company, especially a Bay Area-based consumer electronics company, saying they like green energy. Everyone says they like green energy, even the oil companies (https://www.total.com/en/commitment/environmental-issues-cha...). What would be "remarkable" is if they made significant changes to how they do business to, at least, avoid making the problem worse, and they are not doing that.

[rgovostes]

Maybe some day we will see a headline like, "Apple now globally powered by 100 percent renewable energy". Some day.

[apsec112]

What does that even mean? Electricity is fungible. Suppose that ten megawatts of coal power and one megawatt of solar power goes into a power grid, and I draw 100 kilowatts out of that grid. I ask the power company to declare that my office is "powered by renewable energy". They can happily write me a piece of paper, saying that my 100 kilowatts of consumption "comes from" the one megawatt of solar input. But it doesn't change the amount of coal that gets burned, it's just moving numbers around.

[joshio]

Did you read the article? They're specifically investing in building solar farms and other renewable energy sources, as solar becomes more cost efficient it will push back on new developments of coal plants and other dirty energy sources.

This is not about the short term results, this is putting a strategical bet on clean power. And as you can see from Apple's other business, they're all about long term gains.

[apsec112]

Total, the huge oil and gas company, also invests in renewable energy. They have a whole list of investments, one can read through them all on Crunchbase:

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/total-energy-venture...

Does that mean Total is a "green company"? Of course not.

[saagarjha]

You could do that, if the one megawatt of solar power came from the roof your building because you built solar panels on it, as Apple has done.

[joshio]

You don't seem to get it, they do not just say that "they like" green energy - the link tells us that they switched over to 100% renewable energy. Even in China and India!

What I'm saying is that it's due to their business success that they can afford to take this investment. The success that made it possible can't just be toyed around with to suit every idealist's short sighted agenda of "Do more!".

[apsec112]

Are they disconnected from every power grid in the world, and using their own solar panels and windmills 100% for everything? Of course not. They're drawing from the same grids that have most of their electricity supplied by coal and oil and gas. It's just that the power companies arbitrarily declare that the watts they draw out "come from" the small fraction of solar that gets fed into the grid. See my response here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16799265

[saagarjha]

They are also feeding into the electricity grid…