Amazon Blog

You're talking about District Heating[1], and that's been around for decades in hundreds of cities. It's the source of the steaming manhole covers that are a fixture of noir imagery.

Denver's got the oldest continually operating system in the world, and within the last decade or so, they added a cooling loop, as well. Instead of a boiler and a cooling tower, you can subscribe to a steam loop and a chiller loop.

The problem is once again of gradient. It makes thermodynamic sense to pipe steam around, because of the large gradient between steam and ambient. But servers don't make steam. At best they make warm water only a couple of dozen degrees over ambient... and warm water doesn't have enough energy to heat buildings very effectively.

That said, and as someone already mentioned, people are doing it anyway. Seattle's internet exchange pipes its water across the street to the Amazon towers[2].

BTW, Seattle's Georgetown steam plant might not be making steam any more, but the one down by the market is still operating as Emwave Seattle[3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_heating

[2] https://blog.aboutamazon.com/sustainability/the-super-efficient-heat-source-hidden-below-amazons-new-headquarters

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Steam_Company

Amazon has already increased both normal and overtime pay for these workers, and instituted lots of reasonable changes in their stores and fulfillment centers. See https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-actions-to-help-employees-communities-and-customers-affected-by-covid-19

These strikes just seems opportunist. For those saying “workers should get PPEs” - how? There’s a shortage and medical workers are a higher priority since they’re more likely to be infected. And clearly, online shopping is popular these days and important to keep operating while there are shelter in place orders. Grocery stores are also important to keep operating.

These workers are free to forego their jobs and go home. Amazon should just replace them and move on. There will be many others who are willing to work.

Direct from the source, here is what Amazon is doing:

https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/how-amazon-prioritizes-health-and-safety-while-fulfilling-customer-orders

> We’ve extended the increased hourly pay outlined below through May 16. We are also extending double overtime pay in the U.S. and Canada. These extensions increase our total investment in pay during COVID-19 to nearly $700 million for our hourly employees and partners. In addition, we are providing flexibility with leave of absence options, including expanding the policy to cover COVID-19 circumstances, such as high-risk individuals or school closures. We continue to see heavy demand during this difficult time and the team is doing incredible work for our customers and the community.

The fat measurement bit seems interesting. It seems entirely dependent on CV.[1] It does acknowledge that people gain fat differently but I am very apprehensive of this feature. Definition of muscles unless you go sub 10% BF looks very different among people. Also, clicking full body pictures and uploading it in a third party service even though this is Amazon feels very violating for some reason.

I think traditional home/gym scales use electrical impedance to measure this like this Inbody one. [2] They also claim to have been validated by studies. I would rather want these devices to become more portable and affordable.

[1] https://blog.aboutamazon.com/devices/a-better-measure-of-health

[2] https://inbodyusa.com/products/inbody770/

Disclaimer: I work at Amazon, views are my own.

Delivery trucks: 100,000 trucks at $70k each = $7 billion investment over 5 years. [1]

Datacenters: 80% renewable energy by 2024, 100% by 2030 [2]

For boxes, I'd agree that there's a lot of room for improvement in reduction in cardboard use and packaging reuse.

Everyone should come to their own conclusions about whether companies are doing enough in each area. For delivery trucks in particular I'd call the investments happening there much more than "spare change".

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/19/20873947/amazon-electric-delivery-van-rivian-jeff-bezos-order
[2] https://blog.aboutamazon.com/sustainability/reducing-carbon-by-moving-to-aws

Amazon is actually defined by long-term thinking, which was heavily criticized for over a decade while their stock remained flat. It's hard to imagine now, but people didn't really believe in the company until about 2009.

Jeff Bezos' letter to shareholders, 1997:

It's All About the Long Term

Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh tradeoffs differently than some companies... We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions.

https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-original-1997-letter-to-shareholders