Apple's North Carolina Data Center Will Feature Biogas Generators

1sockchuck writes "Apple's North Carolina data center will tap landfills for biogas, which will then be converted into electricity using fuel cells from Bloom Energy. The 24 'Bloom boxes' will have a capacity of 4.8 megawatts of power, and along with a large solar array, will provide Apple with a significant on-site generation of sustainable energy. Microsoft is also developing biogas-powered data plants where modular data centers will be housed near water treatment plants and landfills. GigaOm has a useful primer on biogas in data centers, as well as video of the new higher capacity Bloom boxes that will support Apple's server farm."

Re:Are Apple's data centers really news?

[Grayhand]

Each standard def movie is around a gig of data. High def can be several times that. Add up music and apps and you might be shocked how much data Apple transports through their data centers. On top of that there's the OS and other Apple software from their non handheld app store. There is also their on line storage of data and other services. The Apple data centers transfer massive amounts of data so using renewable sources is a very good thing. Most of Amazon's business is physical not digital where as iTunes is all digital. Google is pure on-line so they eat a lot of bandwidth. I say good for Apple for trying to offset energy usage with more sustainable sources.

Re:Are Apple's data centers really news?

[beelsebob]

You do realise that the iTunes music store is the largest online music and video retailer in the world (yes, bigger than Amazon); and the iTunes app store isn't the largest online app store right?

And that's completely ignoring the fact that they have an enormous cloud operation syncing iDevices and Macs constantly.