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Comment by vonzepp | Hacker News Reader

I find this debate a bit odd. Climate change is a global issue. So moving these emissions out of Ireland so Ireland can reach it's targets doesn't help if those emissions mearly happen elsewhere in the world. In reality, there is two options either these data centers are simply not built, which isn't going to happen. Or rich countries such as Ireland, take it on to themselves to see taken on datacenters as a burden they must carry, coupled with increased renewables. With Ireland's wind on the west coast potential, this is something we must Especially with a temperant climate

Moving the datacenters away from East coast Dublin to West coast. Galway in an ideal world would be also useful.

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>> moving these emissions out of Ireland so Ireland can reach it's targets doesn't help if those emissions mearly happen elsewhere

They aren't being moved out. This is basic market forces, negotiation between provider and consumer. Ireland would be perfectly happy to host these datacenters should they be carbon neutral, perhaps by constructing their own green energy support system. The datacenters don't want to do that. They want cheap electricity. They want to be simple electricity consumers and thereby outsource any emissions issues to the local grid. Ireland has chosen not to take on that burden. If another country is willing, then so be it. Nobody should engage in a race-to-the-bottom on emissions. If these datacenters want to be in Ireland, they are free to foot the bill.

That is generally how utilities work. More demand == more money, which leads to more power plants / wind / solar to power it.

Renewables are the cheapest to add by far, so should be the majority of new generation capacity.

Ireland's energy isn't particularly green, compared to nearby countries.

The UK, Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal all have lower carbon emissions from CO₂.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/zone/IE (set to "Yearly" view).

Ireland only stopped burning peat for electricity last year!

Nuclear being illegal in Ireland doesn't help.

I'd be ok with it. As long as nobody that's contracted to build housing or apartments here is involved. We'd somehow have meltdown before they laid the foundation.

Considering how things are built in Ireland that's a great thing for the world, trust me.

> stopped burning peat for electricity

Thank goodness – save it for the Whisky!

Pah, good irish Whiskey doesn't need to add dirt to add flavour, leave that to the Scotch!

I think others have already alluded to this, but the source of the electricity is the important bit. A datacenter running entirely on hydroelectricity is significantly greener than one running on coal. Moving the datacenter to a location where the source is as green as possible can have a big impact on emissions.

Exactly. Furthermore, the fine article mentions 21% going to datacenters (of which, which fraction might be off-shoreable anyway?), and 18% to homes.

Okay, that leaves 61% going to what?

Which other industry uses have been going up or down? Then compounded by "If we already had lots of wind and lots of solar, it wouldn’t be a problem", which, as far as datacenters go probably misses the need for storage.

What this is seems more of a meme article, linking presumably evil datacenters, with climate change, with "policy of low corporate taxation."

>Okay, that leaves 61% going to what?

Commercial maybe? I used to work in a Lidl and it was mentioned when they started automating their store lights inside and outside to turn off at night that it was taking a large load of the grid.

Lot's offices, SME's etc?

Warehouses? Not sure if they count as industrial or not.

Of course. And metals smelters, and street lighting. Whatever. The point was that the fine article didn't care about that because it was a political hatchet job, rather than informing on how or why electric power is used in Ireland.

Or 3: We need to think more for what those datacenters are used, make our programs more efficient, ...

Presumably you'd keep evicting them out of these tax havens until the only option they've got left is to innovate and optimize energy use, or heavily invest into renewable sources that don't have a huge heat/pollution footprint.

> either these data centers are simply not built, which isn't going to happen

And this is why we will never solve the climate issue, because we still refuse to even entertain the idea of doing what we must do, what we must have been doing for decades but have refused to so it's going to be harder and harder to quit.

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