Data Centre carbon emissions and impact on Ireland's energy needs

M three

There are around 70 energy guzzling and carbon producing data centre's in Ireland with more planned.

Irish consumers are already paying increased energy costs and there are numerous reports of energy shortages down the line.

Given Data centres will soon consume a third of Ireland's energy why have we allowed them set up shop here?

https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/climate-change-and-data-centres-5392847-Mar2021/

L1011

From a global sustainability perspective, they need to be put in the places where they emit the least carbon which is here, Scotland, Finland.

We need to have the carbon emissions recognised as part of the load of the other countries using DCs here.

M three

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117915592#Comment_117915592

What good is a global perspective to Irish residents facing increased energy costs and possible blackouts? Never mind the environmental destruction of green sites to house massive data centres.

M three

Why are massive, energy guzzling data centres allowed set up here given the looming energy crises?

https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/ireland-could-facing-energy-blackouts-24773048

Ireland's electricity grid is facing the increased prospect of blackouts this winter as emergency plans to import power generators have stalled, according to Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir.

Energy blackouts could be on the cards over the winter months after plans to import power generators to deal with a potential energy crisis have been shelved.

EirGrid, the power grid operator, has confirmed that a proposal to import six emergency gas generators is no longer going ahead.

The impact of Covid-19 has meant delays to maintenance and repairs of generators, including two gas-powered generators in Dublin and Cork, which account for 15% of conventional generation.

Traditional types of generators are also generation are being phased out due to EU directives.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058209656/data-centre-carbon-emissions-and-impact-on-irelands-energy-needs

The big question is why can we not distribute the emissions to the country they serve. ???

these countries are fighting to get the relevant taxes out of tech companies based here. Part if that should be acceptance of carbon emissions

Does anyone else see the irony?

KaneToad

Don't forget that approx 30% (depending on source) of internet bandwidth is taken up by pornography.

Collective onanism is contributing to the death of the planet.

How futile is that.

El Tarangu

As another poster pointed out, much better to build them in place like Ireland where the climate is much more favourable for passive cooling.

The best solution would be to build a nuclear power plant (or two) - then we would have enough cheap, green energy to power any number of data centres. Plus all of the electric cars that will looking for juice over the next few years. And still have enough power left over to export to our neighbours.

I doubt it will ever happen, though.

M three

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117919327#Comment_117919327

Do you mean allocate the amount of emissions generated by a data centre to the quota of their 'home' country?

That still means the actual carbon footprint and environmental destruction is here.

M three

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117919347#Comment_117919347

I think the bigger irony is Irish people protesting about environmental damage overseas (amazon fire for example) while thousands of acres of green fields are being destroyed at the same time in their own country by massive data centres.

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.idaireland.com/doing-business-here/industry-sectors/cloud-computing

when the Ida partnership with Amazon and the lads has stood up their proposed infrastructure it will use 30% of our energy

PeadarCo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117919719#Comment_117919719

And how to expect people to work from home? Use pretty much anything on the Internet? Modern data centers have enabled cloud computing which played a large part in people being able to work from home. Remember every piece of data has to stored some where physically. These days that more often than not means at a data centre. If you want Netflix,Amazon prime(all of which eliminate the need to make DVDs and all the associated infrastructure) and pretty much anything that relies on high speed Internet such as working from home you need data centers.

Unless you want to give up all the advantages that comes with high speed Internet connections you need data centres. If you need data centers you want them located in places where the least amount of energy is required to cool them. That's means for better or worse places like Ireland.

bk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117919681#Comment_117919681

Just like how we enjoy cars built in Germany or Korea, without any of the carbon footprint and environmental damage that their production creates? Or the emissions and damage that the production of consumer electronics, clothes, etc. does in China, etc.

I find these sort of complaints about Data Centers highly hypocritical and selfish. We have basically outsourced most of the worst polluting heavy industries to other countries, so we can then pat ourselves on our back on how clean our local environment is!

If we fairly shared our emissions from all the products we buy from other conuntries, I've no doubt we would be paying far more then what the Data Centers cost us.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117919681#Comment_117919681

Think globally.

so what you are saying is that you are ok with factories pumping out Emissions to make your stuff as long as it’s in a different country ?

Ubbquittious

These guys are setting up shop in Ireland and eating into "our" carbon allowance from d'EU while their owners prance around on their superyachts.

Ordinary people in Ireland will be on the hook for paying EU carbon fines through tax because these datacentres were allowed to set up shop here, fully automated, employing feck all people. If the EU fines didn't exist I wouldn't have a problem with it, but they do.

You'll be told you shouldn't burn as much petrol / heating oil while these datacentres continue to tip away at full load

M three

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117921772#Comment_117921772

Your argument is that Irish people should put up and shut up about the environmental destruction and energy shortages and higher energy prices that massive data centres bring because we use the internet?

Thats a very simplistic view.

There is absolutely no way all the data created by ireland needs the 70 data centres that we already have never mind the rest that are in the pipeline.

The majority if not all of them belong to american companies, why dont they stick them in north america.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117923297#Comment_117923297

I never said put up and shut up. I said we need other countries to acknowledge that the data centres emissions are attributable to them and as such they should take the burden of emissions

if they were in some other climate then the emissions would have a worse affect on the planet. They suit our climate, where the temperature is mild and doesn’t fluctuate to much.

Your suggestion that they stick them in North America demonstrates your lack of basic understanding of why they are here and who they serve.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117923297#Comment_117923297

A lot of them offset their usage so are quite green. For every KWH consumed they generate a KWH of RES. ( not nessecarly in Ireland)

maestroamado

I have to say i am abit lost in this... Can we really keep in line with our targets as regard to reducing carbon and habve all of these data centres... It seems to be Government policy to go ahead with these... it makes no sense to me...

Are we linked to Corporate America in all of this... Personally i do not want to be told i am paying more for energy for these shareholders...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117952780#Comment_117952780

The website you are typing this into is hosted in a data centre. Your online banking is in a data centre. They aren't just used by corporate America.

Ireland is the perfect location for data centres due to its climate and geography. Many if not most, off set their consumption with renewables, so they are helping to fund many of the green energy schemes being built or coming online right now.

Are we linked to Corporate America? Of Course, between Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple, State Street, BNYM and Microsoft, they employ about 35,000 people in Ireland.

The impact of Covid-19 has meant delays to maintenance and repairs of generators, including two gas-powered generators in Dublin and Cork, which account for 15% of conventional generation.

I'm curious. What exact impact did Covid have that generators requiring maintenance or repair, weren't tended to?

maestroamado

Thanks for reply, i know all the places you mention use data but i think some of the banks are pulling out. The media are saying we are currently using something i read 12% and teh average world usage 2%.They also say this will go up to 70% if they know what they talking about...

It seems clear if this is correct we are storing data for more people than ourselved... I am not saying this is good or bad i simply do not know but i suspect that there is a trade-off here something like the Corporation tax...

I have noticed quite alot of our services have not been up to standard so i expect they will gradually return to normal...

Murph85

Why isnt it a condition of planmimg' that the roofs of data centres are covered in solar panels and the heat recovered internally for district heating?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117957701#Comment_117957701

I dont really know where you are getting your figures. Currently, about 3% of our grid capacity is used by Data centres. Its estimated they could take as much as 28% by 2030.

Why isnt it a condition of planmimg' that the roofs of data centres are covered in solar panels and the heat recovered internally for district heating?

Why is it not a condition of planning for all large buildings. I keep hearing how Data centres are massive buildings but most are dwarfed by various shopping centres and malls around the country. For example, the largest DC in Ireland is Googles in Grange Castle which is 860,000 square foot. Compare that to Blanchardstown Shopping Centre at 1.1 million square feet of retail space, or Dundrum Town centre at 1.5 million square foot of retail space.

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117958413#Comment_117958413

i got my wires crossed you are correct as i did not read the article properly... I have no personal view on this just looking for info....

seamus

There are considerably worse industries we could be fostering here in terms of carbon emissions. If @denartha's figures above are correct, then DCs use about 3% of our energy, while contributing 1.58% of our carbon emissions.

Which suggests they're not the worst offenders, and if were to "spread the load" across the rest of the EU, we might find our net carbon emissions actually go up as we take our share of the pain from heavy industry elsewhere.

The issue about energy is not datacentres, it's persistent nimbyism about wind generation, offshore in particular. ESB Networks have long been flagging the need to decommission older plants - which has to be done whether or not new capacity comes online - but alternative green solutions are constantly being appealed and blocked.

Hopefully the proposed new regulations will unblock a lot of this and only permit objections to far-offshore plants on very exceptional grounds.

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117959599#Comment_117959599

I am pretty sure i read in recent days something like 11%... will see if i can find article....

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117959659#Comment_117959659

https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/climate-change-and-data-centres-5392847-Mar2021/

From the article:

Data centres are currently responsible for 1.58% of Ireland’s carbon emissions, are projected to use 29% of Ireland’s total energy by 2028, and Eirgrid has warned that by 2026 the twin (smart) demands of data centres and electric cars could exceed Ireland’s energy supply.

The numbers seem to change depending who you ask..

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117960182#Comment_117960182

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/data-centres-could-use-70-of-ireland-s-electricity-by-2030-committee-to-hear-1.4685589?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fnews%2Fpolitics%2Fdata-centres-could-use-70-of-ireland-s-electricity-by-2030-committee-to-hear-1.4685589

This is the article i read and got the 70% earlier and also the 11%... I thouht i was losing the plot...

Capt'n Midnight

I'd imagine that data centres here would tend to operate at very roughly the same capacity every day. So would increase the base load rather than the daily / annual peaking like domestic and industrial demand would

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117965998#Comment_117965998

Yes, they use the same power day and night.

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117965998#Comment_117965998

I was talking to a guy who has a company that mantains these places a few years ago... He was telling me about tempreture control and all the work in setting up these centres.

I did not realize until now how widespread these places are in this Country...

Gaoth Laidir

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117919681#Comment_117919681

That still means the actual carbon footprint and environmental destruction is here.

Please explain how these centres destroy the local environment.

mickdw

The more I read, the more I think we are being taken for a ride by the EU.

Load the bank debt onto the Irish.

Load the data centre CO2 onto the Irish.

What are the Irish good at?

tech jobs - not for long when we sort the taxes out

Beef farming - reduce that. Those cows are destroying the environment.

Peat - stop that, it's destroying the environment. Better they import it from Germany.

Fishing - we will have that thanks.

If Ireland is not being allowed to account of all this CO2 from other countries data storage when dealing with carbon targets and fines, well I can only think that the whole carbon tax idea is a joke on the ordinary man.

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117975348#Comment_117975348

There is no point in blaming the EU we are Goverened from Dublin... Blame us for not demanding that we have proper infastructure... we have limited rail and public transport... I read a few weeks ago that Government were going to concentrate on public transport... i read today that that the new rail system in Dublin is pretty well stalled...

Data... I expect there is some financial benefit with having these centres to help with the loss of this tax change thats coming... if i am correct the EU will be able to have another go at us in the future...

Dont blame the EU... blame you and me... we bailed out the banks and the developers and the Government said nothing in our favour only blame the trioca.... 1 year after they were gone we were back to our old ways....

We bailed the banks and the bankrupt developers... we now have pretty well the same developers selling houses to vulture funds that got planning for homes for Irish people...

The monster you mention is living here not in Europe...

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117919991#Comment_117919991

you know it’s not cloud computing for Ireland yes? It’s for Amazon and Microsoft customers globally, and you’re paying for it

PeadarCo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117975955#Comment_117975955

And what do Amazon and Microsoft sell? Cloud storage. It might not be their headline product but its something both have invested heavily in in recent years. Microsoft have been integral to enabling people to work from home with their cloud servers. All this data has to be stored somewhere. The reason its called the "cloud" is because the data is held not on your own device/on site server but in a remote data center like what they build in Ireland. In Microsoft case they have invested heavily in cloud computing. Look at Microsoft Office 365 and how heavily cloud computing is baked into its functionality. All that means data centers. So yes Ireland is known for cloud computing because large data centers are at the core of cloud computing. Without them cloud computing wouldn't work.

The same of stuff like Netflix and related services. One of the reasons you can have such high speed download speeds are data centers spread across the world that enable data to be stored relatively close to its users.

And if your issue is which global customers using these data centers its being absolutely hypocritical when it comes to global warming. Ireland due to its geography and natural resources outsources most of its heavy industry to the rest of the world ie oil production,car manufacturing, mining etc.

On a global scale one of the best ways of managing green house emissions is to minimise energy use. If data centers use less energy when built in Ireland when compared to the rest of the world its better for the environment. Assuming you want to keep all the things that data centers enable(such as this website). Its even better if a huge portion of that energy comes from renewable sources.

ted1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117957818#Comment_117957818

Because they use free air cooling and the roofs aren’t fully available, also to be honest they’d get very little.

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117976677#Comment_117976677

Thats kinda what the guy i met who ownes the company was saying as he was talking about ducting and fans so it kinda fits with what you say...

Oddly enough i seen Boris an hour ago on CH4 news talking about not buying carbon credits....

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117976228#Comment_117976228

We’re paying for it

they’re not paying enough tax

Birdnuts

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117959599#Comment_117959599

Do you believe wind energy developments should get a free pass when it comes to adhering to EU directives on habitats, birds etc?? I suggest you read up on the daily fines Ireland is paying for multiple failures on windfarm planning such as the Derrybrein case etc.

PeadarCo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117976991#Comment_117976991

The statement on tax is an economic question not an environmental question and a discussion for a different forum.

What do you mean are paying for data centers? Whats the evidence behind that statement?

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117975709#Comment_117975709

We are governed from Dublin. That is only true in terms of optics. Realistically, the decisions are made in Europe and the government here makes the small decisions between departments etc.

We know for a fact Michael Noonan was on the verge of making a speech saying bondholders would lose their money when EU under threat of bankrupting the country gave him no choice but to give the opposite speech.

I agree that as a nation we are getting taken for a ride again and again. What is the answer though?

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117976792#Comment_117976792

There's a Tory party conference on so expect lots of sabre rattlin' talk from Boris & co.

They are still going about immigration even though they've always had complete control over non-EU immigration.

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117977750#Comment_117977750

You call it what you like but he ia PM and he said it live on the news... This thread is not about immigration...

We need to wake up we are being told farmers, motorists, householders are to be hit with taxes because of carbon omissions... The same people who are doing this are allowing the energy we are paying tax on to be used by Corporate companies who only work for the shareholders...

We are the shareholders of this Country and we need to have a say...

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117977303#Comment_117977303

If the Government are only making small decisions what are all the politicians doing...

M three

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117975276#Comment_117975276

For starters the amount of green area they are wiping out. Have you seen the amount of farmland the facebook data centres in damastown/clonee have expunged?

Must be in the hundreds of acres at this stage.

Interesting idea to have floating data centres in the sea. Plenty of cooling water in summer. Don’t think it will take on here any time soon, trying to stabilise the platforms would be an issue - though might happen some time in Denmark. 🤔

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117996141#Comment_117996141

I think farming causes more carbon... well according to current Gobernment as farming is getting hit as is all energy...

There is an Electric station beside but i recon it must be using solar/wind so the whole thing works well...

Gaoth Laidir

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117996141#Comment_117996141

You mean this centre, covering just 11 hectares? Blanchardstown Retail centre covers more than 3 times that area. Is that a destruction of the environment too?

Google Maps

Yellow_Fern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117957818#Comment_117957818

All new homes are required to have renewable energy so I imagine similar rules apply to data centres so I presume solar panels are common on data centres but it would be a drop in the ocean of their demand. Distract heating works grand but Ireland is a rather mild climate for it and it requires tearing up everything to install it. You can't retrofit it so easily. Normally it is problem better just to insulate/ airtight new builds. Now if you have apartment towers or swimming pools nearby that might be a bit different.

Yellow_Fern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117976228#Comment_117976228

Can you provide a breakdown of data centre electricity usage in Ireland vs in other climates? ireland doesnt seem so cold when you exclude the wind factor which I guess has little impact on big blocky data centres. See map of average yearly temperature.

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