Greenpeace Admits Coal Power a Job Creator

by Warner Todd Huston | April 22, 2011 1:03 pm

Recently the enviro-centric group Greenpeace issued an extensive report scolding the “dirty” energy choices made by tech giants like Apple, Google, and Facebook. Greenpeace is all exercised over the fact that many of these companies have moved to North Carolina to take advantage of the coal-produced energy there because the costs are cheaper than the power in other regions. Amusingly, Greenpeace seemed to have completely missed the fact that coal obviously creates jobs or all these companies wouldn’t be moving to North Carolina in the first place.

Greenpeace has its nose out of joint because Google, Facebook, and Apple have moved data centers to NC to take advantage of “low-cost energy” that it claims produces a “corresponding lack of commitment to clean energy.” The eco group is aghast that “misplaced tax incentives” bring jobs and economic success to rural North Carolina.

All that capitalism is horrible, I suppose.

Here is the “indictment” that Greenpeace levels at North Carolina-based Duke Energy. (Download .pdf file HERE[1])

Facing high unemployment (15%) following the decline of the furniture and textile industries, North Carolina’s economic development agencies have recruited the IT sector heavily to place data centres there, seeking to become the ‘next Quincy’, with websites dedicated to facilitating site selection in the region.

The price of electricity for select industrial customers of Duke Energy has been reported at 4 to 5 cents (.03-.04 euro) a kilowatt- hour, much lower than in most parts of the US. Unfortunately, the generation mix in North Carolina is one of the dirtiest in the country, with only 4% of electricity generation from renewable sources and the balance from coal (61%) and nuclear (38%).

While Greenpeace is decrying all this evil capitalism, it all goes to confirm that coal is a great way to improve your area’s economy as businesses will want to move to your region because power is cheaper than the exorbitantly priced energy from so-called “clean energies” in other regions.

There is one more amusing bit to this story, tangential, but amusing nonetheless. While Greenpeace is excoriating cloud computing services, data centers, and tech giants like Apple and Google, who sits on the board of at least one of these companies? Who is a senior advisor to another one?

Yep, you guessed it. Globalony guru Al Gore sits on Apple Computer’s board and is a senior advisor to Google, two of the companies that Greenpeace is beating up for being so “dirty” and evil.

While Al Gore is cruising the world pretending at being the savior of the planet, two of the very companies he works with are accused of destroying her! More of Gore’s rampant hypocrisy.

Endnotes:
  1. HERE: http://www.publiusforum.com/pdfs/dirty-data-report-greenpeace.pdf

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