Posted on 07/25/2017 3:53:32 PM PDT by Swordmaker
I applaud this but I am still concerned that our regulatory and tax environment will keep Apple from seeing this as the best move long term.
Good for whomever for getting Apple to agree to this, but Trump and Congress had better get damned busy pressuring the States and themselves to remove the barriers to business and American innovation.
“it has saved millions of dollars each year in energy costs”
Totally disagree. Without taxpayer monies there isn’t a renewable energy that is profitable.
Sorry, but almost no others have gone as far as Apple in making their facilities completely independent of the grid. Certainly no others have done so on the scale that Apple has. Apple is actually 100% independent and selling power back into the grid from their overly sufficient power plants. They in the majority of its facilities and produces more power than is required to run those facilities. The tax credits are only a minority percentage of installation costs but the operation entirely offsets 100% of the cost of electrical energy they WOULD have had to buy, and then they are able to SELL of the excess production over and above what they have capacity to store in batteries back onto the grid. . . that's profit to Apple's bottom line.
You disagree that Apple is saving millions of dollars each year in energy costs? What do you base such a determination on? You have no facts to base your claim they are NOT saving millions of dollars in the money they would otherwise be expending in buying electricity they no longer have to buy from the local electric utility. In just one example, Apple's $2 billion Oregon datacenter is 100% energy independent through a solar energy farm. The cost for installation was approximately $120 million, offset by a $48 million tax credit. original estimated energy costs from the grid to power the data center were ~$12 million per year. Energy costs with the 100% solar farm, including maintenance, ~$2 million per year. Savings in costs over buying power from the grid, ~$10 million per year. Apple has twelve of these data centers around the world, and is building four more, all of them to be 100%, Just because you believe the claim of the "non-renewable" energy producers that "renewables can't be profitable without tax credits" does not make it true. There IS a break-even point, the point at when a profit can start being made, even absent Tax Credits.
That said, CodeToad, what world do you live in where these Alternate Energy Tax Credits don't exist? They are a fact. Do they suddenly go away in your world and eliminate profits that include them in their calculations? The fact is that they DO EXIST and profits do not exclude them.
These purchase/Installment type tax credits usually are applicable for just ONE SINGLE YEAR, the year in which the renewable energy asset was purchased/installed, especially for a company such as Apple with its huge profits where there isn't much ability to carry tax credits over to another tax year, they are not an on-going credit. In addition, CodeToad, such credits apply ONLY for renewable assets installed in the United States or in California; they do not apply for Apple's renewable energy assets in foreign countries where Apple has also installed the same kind of renewable energy resources. However, Apple pays its income taxes in the USA where it can only use such credits for US installations, not in those foreign jurisdictions, most of which don't provide such credits in any case.
Nice try.
“Alternate Energy Tax Credits “
Remove those and tell us Apple is self sufficient. Until then, they are not.
“There IS a break-even point, the point at when a profit can start being made, even absent Tax Credits. “
No one has ever yet to see it. Promises, promises, but let us know when alternative energy is profitable.
I just did, and gave you the figures, but you ignore the facts that prove it, preferring your myth over the reality.
However, it is not a stand alone proposition that exists to sell power to the public. It's profitable for Apple as an adjunct of generating power for their own use. It may not be for others.
Those are facts you choose to ignore in preference of your ignorant claim which has zero proof because it requires proving a negative.
All I needed to do to shoot you down is produce JUST ONE PROFITABLE alternative energy system. I did that: Apple's. Your specious absolute claim is a pile of rubble, lying smoking where it splashed in after being shot down by the accurate fire of truth.
You did NOT bother to read what I wrote, did you? Had you done so, you would have noticed I already disposed of those "Alternative Energy Tax Credits" as they are a fleeting thing that applies only to the investment/purchase of the asset in the first year or so. After the asset is in place they no longer matter. . . and the operating costs and the savings on what WOULD have been spent on buying other energy are what count toward the profits made when Apple has generated more than enough for their needs and then sells excess onto the grid. WAKE UP! Apple has alternative energy plants that have been online for over ten years! Tax credits are good for ONE YEAR!
Go back and read what I wrote and then apologize.
Fact: There isn’t a single alternative energy system that is profitable. Not a single one. Apple isn’t pulling any miracle here, they are just fudging the numbers.
Any solar system can produce some to sell back, but that doesn’t mean it is profitable.
Playing gimmicks with accounting is just lying.
Well...there's hydro. It's, like...organic man.
Hydro isn’t ‘alternative’. It is mainstream.
(so to speak)
Hydro isn’t ‘alternative’.
Sez who!
It's completely renewable, extracts usable power from natural weather cycles and consumes no form of fuel.
(of course petroleum, NG and coal actually are completely "organic")
Well, hydro has been around since the beginning of electricity. It currently accounts for 6.1% of all electricity generated. Other than screwing with some fish, it pretty good.
Well!...All we need to do is develop a market for "organic" ground-fish burgers.
You are the one making claims you can't back up. Apple is 100% energy independent at most of their plants and installations and is selling the excess power back into the grid. They have PAID CASH for the assets and except for the newest plants and buildings going in this year, the Tax Credits have expired.
The energy they are receiving from these passive energy installations costs Apple only the maintenance costs which they generally would have had to expend similar maintenance costs for energy from the grid. All else being equal to costs of energy from the grid which has a daily and monthly retail COST, while the energy they receive from their now FREE sources has only the maintenance and overhead costs they would have incurred anyway, Apple is NOT EXPENDING a single dollar they would have expended in buying energy which, compared to what they would have spent is hundreds of millions of dollars world wide. Those expenses are therefore NOT deducted from the gross profits of Apple's bottom line.
Apple's energy production from these installations is designed to provide more than enough power for even peak demand on the heaviest days, so that on most days on which they do not draw that amount of power, it is diverted to storage batteries. When those batteries are fully charged, that excess production, which cannot be turned off, is diverted into the main power grid and sold to the local public utility at the going wholesale rate per kilowatt hour. I.E. Apple is SELLING their excess energy onto the grid.
Those savings from not having to buy energy retail are being added to their bottom line profits and the revenue of what they sell wholesale is added to the bottom line also. Ergo, Apple is making a profit on their alternative power production.
You cannot refute those facts by repeating, over and over, again and again, stamping your feet, having a tizzy-fit, the same false-to-fact, out-of-date mantra you once read somewhere. You've provided ZERO evidence to back up your claim. None. ZIP! Nada. On the other hand, I have provided numbers, evidence, and proof. . . and at least one major corporations that is doing exactly what you repeatedly claim is impossible.
As for your claim that Apple is "fudging numbers," all of this is done according to GAAP, Generally Accepted Accounting Practices, and Apple's Financial Statements, which are publicly posted, are Audited annually as required by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
By so publishing and making these statements in official statements, the management of Apple has made this claim a matter of truthful fact and were they lying, as you assert and If you could so prove, under the Federal Sarbanes Oxley Law of 2002, the officers and managers of Apple would be personally liable for mandatory fines of up to $20,000,000 and/or prison sentences of 10/20 years as these claims were made as official claims of the corporation which would have a significant effect on the value of the company thus defrauding the investors. They are NOT "fudging the numbers."
You keep on dancing as fast and as ridiculously as you can, denying facts, to idiotic music which cannot back you up with anything other than your unsupported claims as you try to prove a negative. As I said, all it requires to shoot your claim down in flames is a single instance of alternative energy sources making a profit. Sometimes all it requires is to do on a sufficiently large enough scale to get initial costs down. Apple has the acreage and leverage to do it.
In the meantime, you just go on living on your alternate world where facts are not important.
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