Data centres back in the spotlight-using 18% of total power consumption of the country

Lol...bases their opinion of Data Centre value on how many people work in the building.

To support their argument: Immediately proceeds to count car park spaces for a data centre using Google Maps...a cloud service running from a data centre.

Sure, let's close all the data centres so...

The grid can handle it - its the generation we are lacking due to excess demand (caused by, among other things, datacenters now using 18% of all leccy )

Well that is time travel and even more nonsensical.

The 1980s house still exist today and are been lived in.

It’s all well and good saying Ireland is legally obligated to reduce consumption by 2030 and then 2040 - 2045, and we could meet those targets if we weren’t continually developing as a country with an increasing population and increasing demands on electricity because of the infrastructure required to support an increasing population.

It's not my opinion.

Growing population and infrastructure is factored in as is current efficiency and future efficiency technology.

I doubt we have a hope of hitting any of targets but that is more to do with handing over 30% of capacity to 80 odd buildings.

Again it will be 10 times the EU average by 2030.

There is no one that can tell me that is not complete bonkers in terms of energy security and environmental targets.

But again the argument on here like it has been for the last few years is they 'must be stopped versus we need them.' It's the wrong argument.

The reality is they have been stopped for the most part.

It’s not time-travel, it’s comparing living standards then to what they are now, which is generally how a countries development is measured. I didn’t claim they were more environmentally friendly then because they used less electricity, because living standards then were also much lower than what they are today where electricity is the main source of energy for providing heating and pumping water and so on.

Again it’s totally your opinion, as you’ve just given it, and your opinion is based upon there being this idea of a growing population and infrastructure and current efficiency and future efficiency technology. We haven’t handed over 30% capacity to 80 odd buildings (50% of which are located in South Dublin), nor is the reality that they have been stopped for the most part when in reality what they’ve actually done is factored in the cost of lithium-ion battery technology to power the data centres, and aren’t in quite the bind that EirGrid sought to hold them to with their attempted restrictions on access to the national electricity grid.

The data centres in Ireland that we’re talking about here are in the ha’penny place compared to data centres across Europe. To give some idea of context - CERN, which we’re all familiar with, processes and stores about 3GB of data every second, not quite as much as the combined total of Irish teenagers taking selfies (I’m kidding 😁), but enough that they’ve doubled their data storage in the space of four years, and no, I’m not time-travelling, I’m making a comparison:

2013 - 100 PB of data:

https://home.cern/news/news/computing/cern-data-centre-passes-100-petabytes

2017 - 200 PB of data:

https://home.cern/news/news/computing/cern-data-centre-passes-200-petabyte-milestone

Their future projections are only going in one direction -

https://www.computerworld.com/article/2960642/cerns-data-stores-soar-to-530m-gigabytes.amp.html

The question of whether we need them or not simply doesn’t arise - we absolutely do need them, not just to process scientific and health data, but to process exabytes of business data too, in order to provide infrastructure for a developing services economy.

The whole ‘won’t somebody think of the climate!’ arguments don’t appear to be of any great concern to ordinary people.

I mentioned China as they are the prime example of a country that manufactures 90 percent of all of these "smart" and efficient technologies as well as a hell of a lot of goods used in countries like Ireland, yet continue to pour money into electricity generation because their population is increasing AND I am sure the electricity required to manufacture these technologies and others HAS to be generated and used somewhere, if not in the country of final use - which is essentially what a lot of nations are trying to do making themselves feel better about becoming closer to carbon neutral while they are really just moving the problem elsewhere which ultimately means nothing will change, but overall more electricity is required on a global basis to support a larger population.

Here's some data to back up the general claim that increasing population means increased energy demands.

And here some population data predicitions:

https://ourworldindata.org/future-population-growth

In Ireland you'd be daft to think that a move to electric cars, buses, trucks, increased use of computing, the building and ongoing electrical use of an ADDITIONAL 25k-30k houses per annum (a drop in the ocean as to what is actually required) and associated infrastruce is going to mean a reduction in requirements for electicity in this country.

Again, I welcome microgeneration, renewable energies, more efficient ways of doing things but lets not fool ourselves.

Id say that if you want to compare those two things you need to be very specific about what you are comparing.

If your aim is to compare the energy required to keep both properies at 19 degrees year round, you'd probably find that the newer house uses less energy, but if your aim to compare the reality of live in the 80's (where people were generally more accepting/practical when it came to heating themselves and homes) you'll probably find that on average the individual in the 80's used FAR less electricity than they currently do (I think the figures back this up)

You really cannot, argue against this basic premise.

In Ireland you'd be daft to think that a move to electric cars, buses, trucks, increased use of computing, the building and ongoing electrical use of an ADDITIONAL 25k-30k houses per annum (a drop in the ocean as to what is actually required) and associated infrastruce is going to mean a reduction in requirements for electicity in this country.

It's not be thinking it, it's happening and it's legally binding.

With respect I haven't.

1 person uses the water heater, but the smart micro generation property has heated that water as efficiently as possible therefore lowering consumption.

The 2 examples I give is what the tech is doing now.

Decarbonising our electricty generation is happening - reducing electricty usage in the current environment ISN'T happening.

The plan is decarbonising plus reduction.

That might be the plan but reduction on an overall scale wont happen - particularily as our population is predicted to continue to grow.

Arra Jaysus.

You are conflating 2 things, consumption and efficiency. Both are variable. But that's doesn't mean both are equal.

Since we are throwing crux's around you do understand advances in technology mean appliances are more efficient therefore they use less electricity.

A fridge a decade old is not as efficient as a fridge that is bought today. A fridge in a decades time will be even more efficient. Not everyone in the house gets their own fridge.

A school built 150 years is going to be far less energy efficient than one built today.

A hospital, a public building, a swimming pool, etc, etc, etc.

I read before there was an 80%+ saving for councils on street lighting from changing them to more efficient bulbs. Simple practical example, lighting tech is continuing to get more efficient.

Technology efficiencies will outpace population growth, not everywhere as you rightly pointed out, but that's a separate discussion to one on this thread.

I've outlined the reasons above.