New EPA Rankings Dub Intel Greenest of the Green

Intel landed itself on the top spot of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) new list of companies using the most renewable energy to power their business. According to the list, the Santa Clara chip maker uses more than 2.5 billion kilowatt hours of renewable energy sourced from solar, geothermal, low impact hydro, and biomass sources to power 88 percent of its operations.

"Our renewable purchase is just one part of a multi-faceted approach to protect the environment, and one that we hope spurs additional development and demand for renewable energy," Intel Presidenta nd CEO Paul Otellini said.

Intel's focus on green energy has the environmental impact of taking more than 340,000 passenger cars off the road each year and the 2.5 billion kWh saved is equal to the amount of energy needed to power more than 215,000 average American homes annually, the EPA said.

The chip maker was one of just a handful of technology companies to make the Top 50 list, which also included Cisco (No. 15), Dell (No. 43), and Google (No. 47). The EPA ranked itself No. 17.