A Shortage of Drinking Water and Electricity in Ireland

tom1ie

So if there’s a shortage of gas there’s a shortage of electricity.

If there’s a shortage of electricity there’s a shortage of water.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119369820#Comment_119369820

Honest to god, time you got a hobby.

Moaning about having to WFH, moaning about cars, moaning about brake and tyre particles and now moaning about digital waste of all things.

What an utterly bizarre thing to categorize as waste considering how cheap data storage is these days.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119379937#Comment_119379937

Let me know when you're ready to explore the reality of why data centre capacity is so cheap.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119381978#Comment_119381978

Human innovation and capitalism. Making our world more comfortable, enjoyable and healthier. Or would you rather all innovation was outlawed and us still using computer punch cards?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119382055#Comment_119382055

I’d rather we didn’t upload billions of photos and videos that we’re never going to look at again to cloud services that are filling up data centres that are a very significant user of limited energy and water resources.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119382136#Comment_119382136

You're having a laugh. Limited water resources in Ireland. That's like saying the Sahara is running out of sand.

As for energy, there's plenty of ways to produce energy, including nuclear if it comes to that.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119382248#Comment_119382248

Perhaps you’ve forgotten, but we had a couple of years of uproar a few years back over the “water comes from the sky” story.

But yeah, you get those nukes sorted, and then we can pi$$ away our energy supplies storing sh1te that we’re never going to use.

bk

Ironically Nuclear power plants use vast quantities of water!

BTW storing photos uses very little data relatively speaking.

And of course water does just fall from the sky. In Ireland it is laughable to claim that we have any issues with water. Yes we may well have issues with having enough infrastructure (piping, pumping and processing) to get the water where the demand is. But that is relatively easy to fix.

Of course data centers should and I assume do pay for the water they use and that money should be reinvested back in our water infrastructure. Same with Electricity.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385688#Comment_119385688

Relatively speaking? Relative to what? Photos and videos are wasting vast amounts of data centres storage, because 99.9% of them will never be touched or used again. They’re going up to the cloud because we can’t be arsed decided which 1 or 2 of the 100 photos we take on a night out are actually worth keeping.

But if you want to get the infrastructural issues with water management that have challenged our country for decades sorted first, then I’ll stop moaning about storage.

bk

Just build the pipeline to Shannon and our issues are sorted. It really isn't rocket science.

Plus, the fact that people have been talking about water managment challenges for decades, but non of us in Dublin have actually ever run out of drinking water, show that it is really blown out of proportion.

The odd house pipe ban for a week or two in Summer show that it really isn't that big of a deal. The reason the Shannon pipe line project keeps getting pushed off is because it really isn't that urgent. If we needed it that badly, we would just do it.

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385750#Comment_119385750

Why would you be concerned about wasting digital storage? The energy and cooling demands in a datacenter are dominated by CPU utilisation not storage capacity.

Remove half the CPUs and you reduce the energy demand of a typical datacenter by 50%, remove half the storage and you might spare a couple of percentage points.

Sam Russell

If it is needed to reduce the amount of data stored in the cloud, just charge more to store it. That usually sorts out that problem.

Same applies to domestic water usage. Charge more for it and that will solve high usage. However, high leakage does not strengthen that argument. So solve the leakage, and there is no problem.

M three

The taoiseach michael martin has mindlessly said its full steam ahead for datacentres. How on earth does he square them with irelands emissions targets?

https://www.businesspost.ie/analysis-opinion/ciaran-cuffe-now-is-the-time-to-enshrine-a-pathway-to-net-zero-in-law-for-data-centres/

M three

Data centres in now consume a colossal amount of Irelands electricity Almost a third!

Data centres are going to blow a hole in Irelands environmental targets.

https://www.businesspost.ie/news/data-centre-growth-a-challenge-for-emissions-reduction-targets/

The growth of data centres in Ireland represents a challenge to emissions reduction targets and the security of energy supply, according to a new report from a leading energy researcher at University College Cork (UCC).

specialbyte

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119394757#Comment_119394757

Data centres use 14% of electricity in Ireland. Source is from May 2022: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/data-centres-now-consuming-more-electricity-than-rural-homes-cso-1.4868221

From that same article:

Eirgrid, the State's electricity grid operator, has said that electricity usage by data centres could rise to between 23 per cent and 30 per cent of overall consumption by the end of this decade.

14% now. Could be 30% by end of decade if we don't take action. There's effectively a moritorium on new data centre grid connection offers in the Dublin area. So action has been taken.

bunderoon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119394821#Comment_119394821

14% is still a colossal amount of a small nation's power supply. A lot of businesses use the cloud as we know but I would love to see what they use (and genuine usages) compared to the shear amount of useless and narcissistic sh*ite/content that is uploaded to Meta/Google/Youtube/Apple/AWS/Azure.

I would bet the latter is significantly more than the former - and for what? Fug-all.

Strumms

With more people living here the required direct resources and the pressure on them... water.. electricity.. healthcare.. increase..

Data centres ?... fine and dandy but if they are consuming resources that people need and are no longer available to them 100% of the time... questions need to be asked such as how were they given planning permission to build these centres ? ? ?

Something sinister or just incompetent people in planning?

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119395002#Comment_119395002

What has access to healthcare got to do with data centers?

Why do you think it's a choice between "something sinister" and "incompetent planning"? There are quite a few other options, like the investment was welcomed, provides direct and indirect jobs and is seen as a strategic part of the ecosystem which draws IT giants to locate big operations in Ireland.

There's no evidence that the existence of data centres is causing Irish people to go without water or electricity.

M three

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119394821#Comment_119394821

"Action has been taken"

has it now? Can you point us to the "moratorium" or ban on new data centres that you mention?

M three

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119396356#Comment_119396356

Data centres not causing irish people to go without water or electricity?

Not yet, But its already planned for. Have people copped yet that 'smart' meters can be used to restrict electricity to residential areas if industrial customers or data centres have a shortfall?

Birdnuts

Wouldn't Iceland be the place to put all these date centres with its unlimited thermal power and cold climate??

Dufflecoat Fanny

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119335182#Comment_119335182

No no no... siphoning the Shannon will destroy its flora and fauna. It's already under pressure from fishing and poor management. Dublin needs to stopped from getting bigger and everything decentralised. More development in Dublin is becoming unsustainable

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119394757#Comment_119394757

If datacentres are going to blow a hole in Ireland's emissions targets, why is there now a massive push to electric vehicles and electric heating in homes?

They want 1mn EVs by 2030 and average private mileage in Ireland is 17,000KM. That's 46KM every day of the year.

46KM a day x 1,000,000 vehicles = 46,000,000KM a day.

Typical EV consumes 20kWh/100KM.

460,000 x 20kWh = 9.2GWh a day, 276GWh a month, that the grid must now generate and supply.

A datacentre, using 14% of total load each month varies between 336GWh and 405GWh:

https://www.seai.ie/data-and-insights/seai-statistics/monthly-energy-data/electricity/

That's before widescale adoption of heat pumps is factored in over the coming decade.

However a datacentre will consume its total load fairly evenly throughout each day, week, month, EVs and heat pumps are far more "peaky" and lumpy power sources, requiring huge grid resources across the space of a few hours and then sitting idle for the majority of the time. This peaky lumpy load factor is what puts the grid at risk of shortages and rolling outages, not the flat load factor of datacentres.

And its the peaky lumpy load that needs less efficient, more polluting, peak load generation to maintain supply.

So again, why the move to EV and electric hearing if datacentres are already risking Ireland's emission targets and the electrical grid?

KildareP

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119397185#Comment_119397185

ESB Networks could easily shut entire sections of the grid off on an area by area basis via the local transformer station. It's critical for grid stability that they can immediately and instantly shed load when demand exceeds supply.

They certainly don't need smart meters to implement load shedding - easier and quicker to trip a single substation than 10,000+ individual meters.

However meters could offer you the ability to voluntarily sign up to a very cheap price plan in return for agreeing to allow you be cut off if demand outstrips supply (demand side response).

brokenangel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119386500#Comment_119386500

We need to include planning laws that all

these DC have solar panels on every inch of their roofs

Sam Russell

This race to go to electric vehicles is totally misguided as post #74.

Moving to electric vehicles, heat pumps, electric public transport, etc. cannot work without a significant reduction in consumption. It is consumption of energy that is the problem, and moving from gas to electricity without reducing consumption does little to solve the problem of global warming.

Since the millennium, there has been an explosion in car ownership, in travelling by air, and in general consumption requiring a huge increase in transporting goods and food across the globe.

Why the sudden desire for avocados which take a long time to grow, and production is not sustainable at current rates of consumption? Why do we need year round access to seasonal food like strawberries? Why do we fly green beans from Kenya to here? This type of consumption is not needed and no-one would notice if it stopped. (Well most would not). And this is separate, but related, to the explosion of obesity and diabetes in the western world, and spreading (?) to the rest of the world as they aspire to copy the western diet.

Has no-one noticed that this is the centre of the global problem of climate change?

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119397269#Comment_119397269

siphoning the Shannon will destroy its flora and fauna.

How? The quantity being talked about is about 3% of the overall flow rate of the river. And the water would be extracted from Parteen so the 90% of the length of the river that is upstream of that would not be affected in any way at all.

Sam Russell

Draining the Shannon has been a political slogan since the 1930s and has yet to be delivered by any Gov.

I do not think there is going to be any shortage of water in the Shannon basin this century, just as there was no shortage last century, or the one before that. There might be some point in taking water from the Shannon at Athlone or Portumna to counter flooding, but it is needed in Dublin.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119385983#Comment_119385983

The requirement for storage drives the existence of data centres. If we weren't storing every mindless photo and video and every useless email, the requirement for data centres would be far lower. They put the 'data' in 'data centres.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119400476#Comment_119400476

Are you not contributing to the requirement of data centres by posting on boards.ie as every post ever posted is stored for ever on a disk in a data centre somewhere - and probably backed up on another one somewhere else.

Also, it is an EU requirement that EU data is stored in the EU - and in which EU state is the best place to store it?

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119397185#Comment_119397185

You're suggesting this is part of a decades long conspiracy whereby the government encourages data centres, government encourages smart meters, then some day in the future, the government will be able to reveal their true evil intent by restricting electricity to residential areas.

And then the government... gains in what way exactly?

I've no comprehension of a worldview where this "plan" could seem in anyway plausible.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119397185#Comment_119397185

Smart meters cannot cut off your electricity supply.

Snickers Man

1) Am I the only person to think it a tad ironic that somebody is complaining about data centres by posting on an interactive electronic message board which is being hosted by.......a data centre?

2) Who says there are "70 data centres in Ireland"? There are probably many many more than that. There is no standard size for a "data centre". In fact, the industry is telling anyone who wants to listen that the future growth of digital services will be at "the edge." Which is to say, in much smaller data centres and in much larger numbers than the huge centralised highly virtualised installations that have sprung up lately. I

Edge data centres are basically your old on site computer rooms in a slightly different guise. The analogy with public transport is stark. Do we want a relatively small number of double-decker diesel-spewing buses (large data centres) taking everybody to work and play or should we all have our own private vehicle (edge centres) to take us wherever we want?

Ironically it may be advantageous in the broad scheme of things to have a greater number of fuel and heating efficient large data centres rather than a plethora of smaller ones. But if we restrict the number of larger facilities we will just see people installting many more smaller ones that fly under the regulatory radar and end up consuming as much if not more electricity in total than the larger ones.

We will have to generate more electricity no matter what we do. And more of it will have to be generated in smaller and more discrete locations. Rather than have a few central generating stations producing ALL our energy we will have to have smaller, even domestic, power sources such as solar panels on roofs, individual wind turbines etc etc all of which can be aggregated to reduce demand on the overall grid. It will need a change of emphasis for the ESB too, migrating to be a broker of numerous power sources rather than a distributor of a relatively small number.

3) I wouldn't worry too much about water. The use to which it is put by data centres is minimally polluting and it can be recycled fairly easily and cheaply. It is used in the air-conditioning and cooling functions of all data centres and does not have to be potable (drinking quality) for such purposes. We'll get it all back anyway.

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119400476#Comment_119400476

That's just not true. The need for storage does not drive a need for compute power.

Data centres' environmental impact, demand for energy and cooling systems are driven by compute not storage. Storage is a complete red-herring in a discussion about the electrical and water demands of data centres.

You could build a "storage only" data centres and it would use absolutely feck all electricity.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119401086#Comment_119401086

Is there any such thing as a storage only data centre?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119401081#Comment_119401081

This is all based on the assumption that there is value and merit in the data being stored and processed. Often there is not.

If we had to pay 1c for each WhatsApp message, for everyone, 90% of those messages would never be sent.

And yes, I’m aware of this irony of using a data service to complain about data centres.

There is a huge difference in scale though between text data like this post and an image, or worse, a video. You could probably store a day’s worth of Boards posts in the same space as a short 20 second video.

Snickers Man

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119403657#Comment_119403657

If you want to argue against the digital society in which we live, then you are free to do so. But it would be like trying to make the case for the divinity of Thor or Jupiter to a modern audience. That ship has sailed!

Data centres are not JUST about sharing kitty pictures on TikTok or engaging in monosyllabic exchanges of invective on Twitter. They are the building blocks of much of the services we depend upon today. Can we turn the clock back? Well, it's been tried. By the likes of Pol Pot. (He's not remembered fondly)

In times of extremis, people can endure shortages and lifestyle changes which appear at first sight to bring them backwards. In the last War (or Emergency, if you prefer) for example, private cars practically disappeared from Irish roads. We, or our parents/grandparents, went back to the pony and trap or even to Shanks' Pony. A backward step, maybe, but one necessitated by the dire shortage of petroleum fuel. (We were stock piling it all to give to German U-boats, remember? :) )

However, once the war ended, things rebounded pretty quickly. The new plant that had been established for the war effort, especially in the US, and the advances in technology and production techniques that had been facilitated by the war brought a huge boom in consumer goods and technological advancement. Certainly, things were better in the more affluent place like America but Ireland got pulled along by the general euphoria eventually. The 1950s were pretty bleak here; the 1960s were transformational.

Digital technology has huge potential, still, to change society and how we live and work. It won't all be for the better but it is likely that we will not want to go back to the old ways.

Have you even any idea how much a postage stamp costs nowadays? If you are under 30 do you even own a record (sorry, CD) collection? Do you know what a VHS cassette is/was?

Data centres are here for the foreseeable future. In many forms. Yes, we need to make them greener, more efficient and more sustainable. But wringing our hands and saying Can we get rid of them? does no good.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119404395#Comment_119404395

I'm not arguing against the digital society, particularly as I've spent my working career building the digital society.

I'm arguing against the inherently wasteful practices that have emerged, such as one person pushing hundreds of photos and videos up to the cloud on one good night out, and then never looking at them again.

M three

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119397581#Comment_119397581

No they dont have solar panels on every inch of their roofs.

millb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119406225#Comment_119406225

Why not ?

M three

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119420479#Comment_119420479

You can clearly see from the aerial pic of the monster facebook data centre that is does not have solar panels on "every inch of their roofs" as was falsely claimed by a previous poster.

JohnC.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119432863#Comment_119432863

The poster made no such claim. It's your comprehension at fault. What he actually said was

"We need to include planning laws that all these DC have solar panels on every inch of their roofs"

M three

The millions of gallons of water these monstrous data centres consume is really starting to directly affect ordinary consumers who need it for drinking water, cooking, washing etc.

Instead irish water decide to restrict water supply to residents and keep it flowing to big business...

https://www.thejournal.ie/water-shortages-ireland-risks-5837468-Aug2022/

15 AREAS IN a number of different counties are currently impacted by water shortages amid requests from Irish Water to conserve supplies in the coming weeks. 

60 additional supplies around the country are being closely monitored to ensure normal supply continues in the coming months.

gjim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119459652#Comment_119459652

What millions of gallons? I'm guessing whoever came up with this number lazily extrapolated from some report on North American data centres - where the use of wet cooling towers is not uncommon.

European data centres generally don't use wet cooling towers and so barely consume a dribble of water.

It would be fairly daft to try to use evaporative cooling in a largely damp and relatively cool climate like Ireland's and no Irish data centres use wet cooling towers from what I've seen. They're used in hot dry climates like you have across much of the US for example.

I get it - you hate data centres - so you're inclined to believe any anti-DC claims you come across but try to mix a bit of critical thinking into your outrage, ffs.

M three

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119461161#Comment_119461161

Nonsense. Irish data centres are using millions of gallons of water. You are either badly misinformed or being 'economical' with the facts.

https://www.businesspost.ie/business/data-centres-use-same-amount-of-water-as-large-towns/

Data centres owned by large multinationals, including Facebook and Amazon, are using the same amount of water as some of Ireland’s largest towns at a time of reduced supply.

An analysis of planning documents by the Business Post has found that the facilities require tens of millions of litres of water every day to cool down their servers during the warmer summer months. The revelation comes as a hosepipe ban has been introduced to cut ...

gjim

The Sunday Business post story is boll*x - like I said, water is only consumed in data centers which use evaporative cooling and none do in Ireland because - surprise surprise - cooling by evaporation in a damp cool climate is futile.

I can guess what their “analysis” involved - find the size of a proposed DC in a planning application - look up similar in the US where water consumption is a genuine issue, then assume that the Irish equivalent consumes the same without understanding that Irish DCs use completely different cooling technology. Lazy “outrage” journalism.

Please name a single Irish DC which consumes large quantities of water.

specialbyte

I thought I'd go digging for an example. DCC granted permission for a new data centre for Amazon in Clonshaugh on 13th July: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/amazon-gets-planning-permission-for-two-new-data-centres-in-north-dublin-41911199.html

The planning reference is 3641/21. The energy report in that application indicates that this is a 16.8MW data centre, which is on the smaller side.

You can find the engineer's drainage report here: https://webapps.dublincity.ie/AnitePublicDocs/00971419.pdf

I'll extract the useful section below:

1.png

They mostly won't need to use water for cooling. Max water inflow on the worst possible day, if they have no stored rainwater is 1.2 litres per second. That's about 100,000 litres per day. The average Irish person uses 150 litres per day. The data centre on the worst case is the equivalent of about 700 Irish people.

The section on rainwater harvesting:

rainwater.png

The total year mains supply usage is expected to be 264m^3. That's 264,020L. Or the equivalent of 4.88 Irish people's water demand for the year.

I don't think you can say that the newer data centres being built in Ireland are super water hungry. This one doesn't use water cooling 95% of the time. When it does use water cooling it's using rain water. The amount of mains water it uses is tiny.

Economics101

At least Data Centres pay for their water, unlike others I could mention!

Capt'n Midnight

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119397247#Comment_119397247

No. Because it's half way across the Atlantic so the ping time would be longer. Things that aren't time critical like Bitcoin mining happen there. Aluminium production is the big one.

Furze99

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119459652#Comment_119459652

You're forgetting something.... data centres are businesses and liable to rates and water charges by use. Businesses pay for use of public water.

If you're an ordinary public customer of Irish Water, you don't pay for water. And don't give me the crap about general taxes. We all pay them and many of us don't get free water.

So who should Irish Water restrict or cut off first, those who pay by use or those who expect a free service??

The resistance to modest water charges by use was one of the stupidest campaigns ever run, for the benefit of political opportunists trying to build their reputations. Water charges represent one of the few sensible, sane taxes for the ordinary householder.