Amazon, Microsoft low on Greenpeace clean-energy 'cloud' index
Greenpeace is releasing today its ratings on how clean or dirty tech companies' clouds are, and among those it dings are two local giants: Amazon.com and Microsoft. "Cloud" refers to storing data and applications on remote servers and data centers, which users can access through the Internet. That's in contrast with the more traditional method of storage in a company's own servers or mainframes. Greenpeace's report looks at 14 big tech companies' data centers and estimates how much power they need, as well as what type of energy — "clean" or "dirty" — is used to supply that power. The two main sources of dirty energy Greenpeace listed are coal and nuclear.