A Shortage of Drinking Water and Electricity in Ireland

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.

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119481857#Comment_119481857

Facebook in Clonee used 928,000 cu m in 2021. It was a surprise to me that evaporative cooling is being used here, but apparently it's the case. Read the first few pages of the thread.

brokenangel

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

Sorry it was poorly written, I meant they should have. I know they don't. I dont think any of the DC's in Ireland have any

Yet a few miles from facebook they want to fill up fields with solar panels. Why not just fill up the facebook roof

brokenangel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119482224#Comment_119482224

Normally what happens is that part of the deal to bring these companies they will get free use of xyz. I would expect facebook is getting a deal on water and electricity or why would they move to Ireland when multiple countries wanted their DC's

It would be interesting to see what facebook actually pay

Please note I am not against DC's, I just think we should make them do a bit more, like solar panels etc

In terms of water, what people forget is Coca Cola and Pepsico are in Ireland. Coca Cola at one stage due to Thailand floods had a huge percentage of the World supply coming from Ireland(I cant remember the exact percentage). Now you can only guess what amount of water that required.

plodder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119531849#Comment_119531849

I think Coke make the concentrate here. I'd guess that water is added in local bottling plants around the world?

brokenangel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119531870#Comment_119531870

So 1.69ltr of water for every ltr of drink they make

I cant seem to find how much ships out...

1.9b serving of coke per year from another website and as I said at one stage Ireland was producing the majority of WW coke.

They alsi have the bottle section in the North.

It would be interesting just to see how much they use, again I am not saying we should get rid of coke from Ireland. They hire a lot of people

https://www.coca-cola.ie/sustainability/water-and-environment/using-water-wisely#:~:text=We're%20continually%20looking%20for,of%20the%20Coca%20Cola%20system

Sam Russell

Coca Cola make concentrate in Ireland - local bottling plants add local water. The concentrate is a syrup.

Economics101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119531849#Comment_119531849

Do you have evidence of freebies for DCs? There are state aid rules which at the least should insist on transparency.

brokenangel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119532329#Comment_119532329

Is it a secret that when ireland bids on missions like Facebook we offer them incentives to come here? It’s widely known in my company but I don’t have documents etc

Deub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119482129#Comment_119482129

Thank you for researching this. I’ve seen that claim (presented as fact) of data centres using vast amount of water in Ireland (on boards.ie or social media). The lack of response on your post to prove you are incorrect, speaks volume.

Ash.J.Williams

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119337758#Comment_119337758

If the data centre cooling is compromised the first impact will be thousands of servers automatically shutting down as they are configured to do when the temp hits a certain threshold