Ireland has lost the plot on cloud computing and renewable energy

Impetus

Business Insider ran an article this evening on Amazon and Microsoft competing for cloud computing in Europe. Ireland was mentioned as an also-ran. The idea that GB is a viable platform for any international cloud business, given the activities of certain 4 letter snooping agencies is laughable – especially given their almost racial agreement with other Anglo-Saxon countries (ie US, GB, AU, NZ and CA) to swap stolen/pirated info for use against the rest of Europe and the planet.

Ireland needs to distance itself from this pack.

a) By providing a civil law foundation like legal box for companies to use to deliver cloud services to their global customer base. Microsoft is using a version of this concept in Germany (not Ireland) by putting Deutsche Telekom in control of their cloud services.

b) Combining fibre optic links (today’s technology is almost 100x as fast as that of say 10 years ago, for the same €) with HVDC power connections to other countries – sharing the cost between power and data and making it impossible to tap the data – links to the rest of the world. Eg The Europe-India gateway which connects Europe to Asia has no pop in Ireland even though it runs along the South Coast of Ireland. Portugal has plugged in to it and so has tiny Monaco – population c 30’000. Ireland has no fibre/HVDC power connections to France, Germany, Netherlands etc.

c) Ireland claims to be a neutral country. Where is the neutrality in running all your telecommunications traffic via one of the most racist, religiously discriminating countries in Europe – according to an item in today’s Financial Times.

d) The revenues from providing a neutral platform for cloud computing and storage and SAAS would subsidise the cost of creating a high level of HVDC direct power grid interconnectivity with the rest of Europe. This would make renewable energy far more realistic - eg when it is windy in Denmark it is not so windy in Ireland and vice versa. Norway has the ability to the biggest battery in the world thanks to its hydro electric system which provides most of the energy used within the country itself. France has made little progress on renewable energy because finite nuclear power (constructed in the 1970s etc) is so cheap (eg 10c per kWh retail). Dozens of power stations in France and Germany are going to have to close down in the near future due to end of life. Sweeping under the table the issue of waste disposal. Ireland can easily deliver 20 GW of electricity from offshore wind. ie close to 12 EUR billion pa in exports.

e) The availability of large quantities of green energy is very important to the location of data centres.

http://submarine-cable-map-2014.telegeography.com/
http://uk.businessinsider.com/amazon-aws-and-microsoft-azure-in-europe-2015-12