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Ever wondered what display screens look like at 80:1?

Remember all that cash hoarding corporations are doing, starving the economy of jobs?

Apple alone represents $64 billion or 36% of the total $179 billion increase in corporate cash since 2009. And in 2011, overall corporate cash would have actually declined by $6 billion had it not been for Apple’s $46 billion increase. Unless Apple changes its philosophy towards liquidity by instituting a one-time or ongoing common dividend, or if Apple starts to buy back stock, we estimate Apple’s cash balances could increase by more than $50 billion in 2012 and approximate $150 billion.

Supported by our expectations that consumers worldwide will continue to feast on Apple products, we expect overall corporate cash and its concentration will increase in 2012. Apple alone could represent 12% of total corporate cash, about three times more than the next cash king.

That’s the FT quoting Moody’s (via MR)

On solar power at datacenters:

The solar array requires 171 acres of land which is 7.4 million sq ft. What if we were to build an solar array large enough to power the entire facility using these solar and land consumption numbers? If the solar farm were to be able to supply all the power of the facility it would need to be 24.4 times larger. It would be a 488 megawatt capacity array requiring 4,172 acres which is 181 million sq ft.  That means that a 500,000 sq ft facility would require 181 million sq ft of power generation or, converted to a ratio, each data center sq ft would require 362 sq ft of land.

…Let’s focus instead on large datacenters in rural areas where the space can be found. Apple is reported to have cleared trees off of 171 acres of land in order to provide photo voltaic power for 4% of their overall estimate data center consumption. Is that gain worth clearing and consuming 171 acres? In Apple Planning Solar Array Near iDataCenter, the author Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledgequotes local North Carolina media reporting that “local residents are complaining about smoke in the area from fires to burn off cleared trees and debris on the Apple property.”

I’m personally not crazy about clearing 171 acres in order to supply only 4% of the power at this facility. There are many ways to radically reduce aggregate data center environmental impact without as much land consumption. Personally, I look first to increasing the efficiency of power distribution, cooling, storage, networking and server and increasing overall utilization and the best routes to lowering industry environmental impact.