According to a press statement, Apple is adding a new “Clean Energy Charging” feature to the iPhone via an update “later this year.” “Clean Energy Charging” aims to decrease the carbon footprint of the iPhone by optimizing charging times for when the grid is using cleaner energy sources. Clean Energy Charging will be available to users in America.
Andrew Griffin for The Independent:
The feature adds a new process to the iPhone that runs in the background and gathers information from the power grid about carbon emissions, according to data found in the code by blog 9to5Mac. That allows the phone to know when the electricity grid is running at the cleanest times.
The new feature will be able to wait until the power grid is using less energy, and is therefore running on more clean energy, before it starts charging. That could presumably allow iPhones to limit the load on the power grid, as well as charge using more clean sources, which could be useful in situations where power is limited.
The system works similar to those already in the phone to optimise the lifespan of the battery. Those work by monitoring when people tend to use their phone and keeping the battery below its maximum charge until it is needed – thereby lowering the strain on the battery.
MacDailyNews Take: Theoretically, this feature could eventually be introduced wherever power grid emissions data is available for Apple to utilize.
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This idea will have more marketing impact than actual impact. To make a real impact, Apple should take its money resources and CREATE clean energy to charge those devices (and millions of Cars if and when that’s real). Apple Energy would become profitable once scaled up. With access to abundant (cheap) energy, many things become possible, many problems solved.
Great idea – let government or a power company regulate when you use electricity. Probably nothing bad will happen down the road if we just obey our masters.
“Clean energy” is a farcical description. Co, Cu, Li are dominant materials for batteries and used extensively in “renewables.” “Farming” such materials will rip up the earth far & wide. Digging for such materials upends carbon. The use and discovery of energy will ALWAYS be “dirty.” Meanwhile the ideologues sell carbon credits like the C Church sold indulgences…but we will all feel better and think we’re clean.
This may be the dumbest feature ever conceived of by Apple. Would someone tell Apple there is nothing wrong with carbon dioxide. In fact, carbon dioxide is great. It is super. It is the stuff of life. We would not live without carbon dioxide. So, I want to use as much of it as possible and I love the fact that God has given us energy which releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere so that trees can absorb it and create “oxygen” in exchange. What a deal. And the idiots at Apple think carbon dioxide is bad. What morons.
Your 100% spot on…
You’re.
The fact that you are getting low votes amazes me. Are there that many idiots that do not know the difference between carbon dioxide and actual poison gas? Wow. I wish I was in school again and could do a science fair experiment with plants in an aquarium and levels of carbon dioxide. Show dead plants when there is zero levels. Sigh.
There is likely much more to this idea than what is reported in this article. So, the jury is still out. That said, this sounds like a terrible idea. If the user needs to charge his iPhone and it’s a happens to be at a moment when “dirty energy” sources are highest, does that mean the iPhone won’t charge? Charge very slowly? Will the end user be able to opt in or out on this this idea or will all be forced to do so where it’s available? On the surface, this sounds like a very bad idea on many levels and for many reasons.
It depends on your social credit score. Ooops. Did I give away the CCP secret?
My guess is, judging from the photo in this article, when Apple says “clean energy”, they only mean solar power. And those panels (which produce terrible contaminations at the beginning and the end of life) are very cheaply produced by the country of CCP, who has been all over our earth promoting solar JVs, with locals providing cheap properties and the governments mandate the connection to the gird and buying the electricity at fixed price, usually higher than what utility companies usually pay. Humongous solar farms based on Chinese panels are everywhere, and I am sure Apple are doing these JV’s all over the world in desert countries etc while we do not know much about it. Why? Because Apple need the favour from CCP and their people (market). Solar panels produce DC current and only in daytime. They need huge inverters to convert it to AC, enabling higher voltage to connect to grids. Utility companies do not like them to become too big. They do not contribute to the grid stability, instead it’s a big headache to the utilities. When a big transformer blew, be it by thunder strike or otherwise, it causes a big voltage surge in grid and these solar farms are the first ones to drop from the grid which exacerbates. the grid surge. The only saving grace is the large turbine generators that weigh hundreds of tons a unit, rotating at 3600rpm etc. which provide huge moment of inertia to absorb such surge. I am not necessary against the solar panel or even farms so long as they supply small power at a local level. But CCP is everywhere, many countries, exploiting our precious land and resources, leashing red strings on Apple’s neck.
This is why there is such a strong push for battery banks to store the ‘excess’ power from solar and wind for times where neither is generating power. Some systems also going as far as to include a hydrogen generation component to store power in the form of H2 gas.