Paris MarxJul 24, 2024

Data centers now consume 21% of all the electricity in Ireland, more than all the homes in its cities and towns combined. Cloud providers still want more.

This drive for ever-increasing computation serves no one but the bottom lines of major tech companies. It must be stopped.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jul/23/ireland-datacentres-overtake-electricity-use-of-all-homes-combined-figures-show

#tech #ai #datacenters #ireland #energy

Ireland’s datacentres overtake electricity use of all urban homes combined

Statistics raise concerns that rise in demand for data processing driven by AI could derail climate targets

The Guardian
Show threadKevin LydaJul 28, 2024

@parismarx Sigh. I live in Ireland and the datacentre hate is largely due to government seeking to blame others for their crap job running the country.

Transitioning from burning shit to an all-electric energy future, will reduce energy usage by over half but will triple electricity usage. We need to build out our grid and money from datacentres can help.

That means off and on shore wind; residential, commercial and agrisolar; and storage.

Show threadKevin Lyda
@parismarx However the government has done very little to help this. It took ages to get FIT for residential solar. ESB regulations force the installs to be way smaller than they could be. My local primary school finally got a system installed but it only covers a fifth of a south face roof - and that's because the ESB limiting system size. Off shore wind has loads of missing regulations and permitting. And nothing is happening on agri-solar where the panels actually help crops and vice versa.
Jul 28, 2024 at 9:48amWeb
Show threadAlanna 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️Jul 28, 2024
@lyda @parismarx Agreed. There are far more damaging things in this country than data centres. They are, however, a good scapegoat just like people arguing against the motorway system built over the last 20 years. It's sleight of hand to misdirect from the real problems, using arguments FFG used in the 90s and more perception of Ireland as a "mini USA" by trying to claim *all* problems here are a microcosm of US cultural hegemony and/or problems the US experienced in the 60s/70s/80s/90s.