Renewable Energy Claims Hinge On Misrepresentation | Eastern North Carolina Now

 Publisher's note: The author of this post is Jon Sanders, who is director of regulatory studies for the John Locke Foundation.

 "Since 2012," the Apple web site boasts, "all our data centers have been powered by 100 percent renewable energy sources."

 There would seem to be no wiggle room in that claim. Whereas "97 percent effective" implies "3 percent completely bloody ineffective," 100 percent renewable energy certainly seems to mean zero percent traditional energy. Apple gives no hint of any other interpretation, as it continues:


 Economist Travis Fisher for the Institute for Energy Research has shown, however, that "100 percent renewable energy" claims are myths. They are simply untrue.

 As Fisher told Carolina Journal,



 Don Carrington's recent reports in Carolina Journal have drilled down on "100 percent renewable" claims and shown how the facilities are run nigh on exclusively on traditional power sources:


 It's not just Apple's facility. Consider Amazon's:


 The Federal Trade Commission warns against misrepresenting use of renewable energy in its "Green Guides" (last revised in 2012):


 If the facilities were truly powered exclusively "by nature," they'd have a rather interesting performance dynamic. They would suffer from cartoonishly herky-jerky spasms of brownouts. Facilities would power up and down and even out, unpredictably, as sun and wind varied.

 They would be completely at the mercy of nondispatchable resources. So it's easy to understand why they're opting for reliable, dispatchable traditional energy ... especially if they can use the offsets hocus-pocus to say they're not, "100 percent."