MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

Jul 14, 09 - 06:11 pm Comment from: drz

What, not powered by wind and solar??

Jul 14, 09 - 06:17 pm Comment from: mta

drz
then you need a backup wind & sun

Jul 14, 09 - 06:28 pm Comment from: Jubei

Time to go nuclear!

The unit "megawatts" is a rate, not a quantity, so it's absurd to say that the facility will use "20 megawatts annually". It's like saying that someone's going to fly from New York to Chicago, a distance of 1000 MPH. People who write this stuff need to get their facts straight.

I like it how Apple spends $1B just for a facility to run the iTunes Store, which is half of Palm's market cap.

@ScottieBoy,

I think the dude meant megawatt-hour.

Wiki says:

"Confusion of watts and watt-hours

Power and energy are frequently confused by the general public. Power is the rate at which energy is generated and consumed. For example, if a 100W light bulb is turned on for one hour, the energy used is 100 watt-hours (W·h) or 0.1 kilowatt-hour, or 360 kJ. This same quantity of energy would light a 40-watt bulb for 2.5 hours. A power station would be rated in watts, but its annual energy sales would be in watt-hours (or kilowatt-hours or megawatt-hours). A kilowatt-hour is the amount of energy equivalent to a steady power of 1 kilowatt running for 1 hour, or 3.6 MJ.

Terms such as 'watts per hour' are meaningless in practice,[9] unless referring to change of power per hour: Watts per hour (W/h) is useful to characterize the ramp-up speed of power plants. For example, a power plant that reaches a power of 1 MW from zero in 15 minutes has a ramp-up rate of 4 MW/h. Hydroelectric power plants have a very high ramp-up speed, which makes them particularly useful in peak load situations.

Often major energy production or consumption is expressed as terawatt-hours per year. This equates to the continuous energy production of approximately 114 megawatts for the period of one year."

Jul 14, 09 - 09:41 pm Comment from: HotinPlaya

"Scott Millar, executive director of the Catawba County Economic Development Corp"

Hope he gets a bonus!

Jul 14, 09 - 10:19 pm Comment from: BC Kelly

Friends and Neighbors

I'm tellin' ya

Just can't make this stuff up ...


Don Beaver and The Hickory Crawdads


Didn't we catch their show one weekend in Mount Pilot ?





BC

Jul 15, 09 - 01:30 am Comment from: grh

More moronic journalism. I am as grumpy as ScottyBoy and DogGone at the apparent inability of people who earn their living with words to get things right. Another ubiquitous catachresis is to relentlessly give force and pressure in pounds or "Gs". No wonder America clings to the seventeenth century imperial units instead of adopting metrication, to the detriment of the whole world. It's all the journalists' fault!

Jul 15, 09 - 01:33 am Comment from: grh

Oh and another thing: 20 megawatts is nowhere near enough to power 16,000 homes. More like 2,000 homes or...one pop concert!

Hmmm, tax-incentive-based-encouragement, means a plus net income for the city . . .

Seems revolutionary this day in age

Guaranteed 4% unemployment for that city plus a positive cash flow in less than 2 years.

Are they going to still receive the "stimulus"? Yeah from the private sector they will, who will then fund the rest of the nations "stimulus."

Jul 15, 09 - 01:56 am Comment from: BC Kelly

Rick .... Microsoft and Walmart ?

---------------------------------------------------------

grh ... yes, 16,000 seems a bit of a stretch, but 2,000 ?

If you're using THAT kind of power in your place

Might want to turn down the A/C, dim some lights, and kill the sauna

For 10,000 watts at nominal cost of $0.15 kilowatt hour

Your spending $1,500 an hour on electricity

Damn




And remember, we're talking about North Carolina

So 1500 to 2000 watts could be enough to run a home

Hell, Betcha some of the folks, especially "up in the hills"

May not even have indoor plumbing





BC

Jul 15, 09 - 02:12 am Comment from: BC Kelly

grh .... sorry, lost track of some decimal points

Is only $1.50 an hour, which is only $1,000.00 a month

Whew, now you can turn the A/C back up


BC

Jul 15, 09 - 06:58 am Comment from: Hm...

Interesting: for that $46 million tax break, there's a $10 million return in taxes + $2 million to Maiden as tax on power (holy crap - just what rate does Maiden charge?).

Yup, NC is friendly to business — always at the expense of NC citizens. While the legislators are busy arguing over the state budget that was due July 1, they are 'fast-tracking' an insurance bill that gives the State Insurance Commissioner the power to levy a “surcharge” on every property insurance holder in the state to pay for catastrophic losses of the wealthy property owners on the beaches from hurricanes. This law is called the “Beach Plan”. And they're raising the state sales tax to generate revenue.

Jul 15, 09 - 07:13 am Comment from: Hm...

@ BC Kelly

Actually, NC has the distinktion [sic] of having the largest number of out-houses per capita in the US. NC even beat Alaska...

@BC...

What's up with you and your corny stereotypes? Are you trying to be funny? If so we'll play a laugh track for you.

Otherwise, get a life and move out of mom and dad's basement. How do you like that stereotype on a guy with little else to do but give his best try at stereotype humor?

North Carolina is a great place to work, live , and raise a family. Obviously, Apple agrees.

Jul 15, 09 - 08:16 am Comment from: Demon

@Hm...

I thought it was South Carolina that had the largest number of out-houses per capita in the US.

Top 10 states rated for Out-Houses Per Capita in US
1) South Carolina 34.2
2) Louisiana 33.9
3) Mississippi 30.9
4) North Carolina 29.8
5) Alaska 29.7
6) Arkansas 28.3
7) Georgia 27.9
8) Texas 25.9
9) Tennessee 25.4
10) Kentucky 25.1

(Data provided by the PEW Center for Research Greeley CO)





(for humor purposes only)

Obviously energy is too cheap if companies see it as sensible to put a facility that requires low temperatures in N Carolina. I wonder why not Detriot or elsewhere in the rust belt- plenty of excess power, a huge cheap labor force to draw on, and much cooler temps on average.
The tax incentives for development encourage economic perversity.

@hm... & demon

"Actually, NC has the distinktion [sic] of having the largest number of out-houses per capita in the US. NC even beat Alaska..."

You list nearly every southern state in your listing of the largest number of out-houses per capita in the US. I guess it would reason that this is correct - as opposed to those in the mid-atlantic and northeast regions who just relieve themselves in the subway or in an alley. Those folks could sure use the infrastructure of an outhouse, but lack it evidently.

Jul 15, 09 - 10:02 am Comment from: Hm...

@ Demon

I got my ranking from the Census Bureau. Now you know why people in NC always say, "Thank god for South Carolina, bless their hearts!"

Jul 15, 09 - 10:11 am Comment from: Jubei

Just remember that Microsoft will copy Apple with their own data center. Powered by unlimited amounts of "Methane" gas from Ballmers constant, unstoppable farts!

http://www.heptune.com/farts.html

Jul 15, 09 - 10:16 am Comment from: DogGone

It certainly seems that Apple got a sweet deal for starting up in NC. Whilst having the business there will be a good thing, it is hardly going to make a significant dent on the unemployment if only 50 people are working there.

I do hope that Apple stick solar panels on the roof to reduce their demand for electricity. I wonder what they need a large supply of water - are they going to use that for cooling too?

Jul 15, 09 - 11:30 am Comment from: BlackWolf

@ DogGone

Initial employment is 50, going ramp up to more.

And yes the water is for cooling all the servers. Seeing as it's Apple and they are a great Green company they will probably do something to offset the price of electricity.

Jul 15, 09 - 02:00 pm Comment from: BC Kelly

Educat


Sure, break out a laugh track


But watch yerself

Or I'll tell Aunt Bee you're not working and playing well with others

Shazaam




Relax, was just hyperbole to get grh's attention that many folks in USA would love to MAKE $1,000 a month, as someone like him (her) is doing so well they can afford to WASTE that much a month on electricity.

But as a Southerner with some Relatives who DID have outhouses and no indoor plumbing (when I was kid, way back)

Yes, I can make fun of it


Now, I have suspicion you may live in Carolina ?

Sure is a beautiful place with wonderful people.

Glad so many there are finally joining the rest of the USA with 21st Century Thinking as we all come together to make Life better for ourselves and our neighbors - many of whom have been stuck in the 19th Century for a long time.


And tell Opie I said "Hey"


BC

Blackwolf: don't look for much of a long-term employment boost in the area, other than maybe at the power plant. Most of these massive data centers only have a handful of people on-site monitoring stuff.

There will be a bit initial boost of employment from the construction project, but once it's built and operational it doesn't take many humans to keep it running. This isn't a factory, it's a data warehouse.

@BC

Hey, I enjoy a good laugh as much as the next guy. I do live in NC and I guess some things are harder for me to laugh at than others. The idea that the Hickory area is somehow low income and uneducated is far from the truth. Apple did their homework and made a good choice with that part of our great state.

No hard feelings... and I'll tell Andy, "Hello," for ya. (I live closer to Mayberry [Mount Airy] than I do the Hickory area.)