151–160 of 329 posts
So has Ireland made an agreement with them in some way?
I’m just imagining that if there’s no local value for three beyond some temp construction jobs and a handful of service jobs, surely they can just bilk them until they leave. So I imagine data center companies only locate where they can get very safe terms?
Just to be contrarian: what we're talking about is "electricity use from economic activity". This should be good for Ireland but they'll need to build energy capacity to keep up. It's misplaced to be angry about datacenters themselves. There IS value being created, or people wouldn't use the tools. Construction creates jobs, manufacturing the machines in the buildings is a huge global industry; the value people gain…
> There IS value being created, or people wouldn't use the tools. While I do think there is value being created, I think this form of argument is not as watertight as it appears at first glance. Humans are very capable of behaving irrationally. I think there is a lot of harmful, negative “work” being done by AI today. Creating fake videos for Facebook, running girlfriend bots, automated scams, etc. Even employees jus…
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The vast majority of the pro-datacenter 'externalities don't matter as long as I make money' is also pretty obviously astroturfed. The difference is that much of the communication on that end happens in backchannels, directly with the regulators, in secret meetings, without any possibility of public scrutiny. (When that isn't enough, the firehose of paid advertisements gets fired up to convince the public, instead.)
The vast majority of the anti-datacenter movement is funded by the CCP. That's why it is so lacking in facts. Most datacenters use closed loop cooling. That means it doesn't consume water for anything more than the toilets and water fountains. Yet this talking point pops up in almost every article on the topic. Part of the reason you are seeing closed door meetings now is because leaders know that the public is profo…
They all have a closed cooling loop, but almost all of them cool the exterior condensers with an open cooling loop.
Which draws from the watermain, sprays water on the hot condensers, the water evaporates, cooling the condensers. This is done to reduce their electric bills, because condensers operate more efficiently when they are cold.
The fully closed-loop data center, with air-cooled condensers is the exception, not the rule. Because it sucks even more electricity than a regular one, due to its less-efficient cooling.
You are spreading falsehoods, while also accusing people who are factually accurate of being foreign propaganda mouthpieces. This is at best, ironic and jingoistic, and at worst...
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Sweet. Start building TODAY and it will be done in nothing less than 20 years for nothing less than $20 BILLION. What should they do in the meantime?
Or Ireland can import electricity from France TODAY as we export on average 10 GW continuously, and most of it is already generated by nuclear :-)
Sure enough France exports up to about 4GW to the UK, and the UK exports up to about 1GW to Ireland. Right now, it being the middle of the night here, France sends us about 2.5GW and we sent Ireland about 500 MW.
Electricity being fungible by nature it doesn't really mean anything to say that's French electricity when it reaches Ireland, it could just as easily be British nuclear, or wind power from a Scottish wind farm, or any number of sources or any mix.
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At 34 cents per kwh how can you afford to not get solar?
Being poor is expensive.
Not neccesarily saying it makes economic sense to get a loan to install solar, just that homeowners usually aren't the poor class that saying usually applies to.
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This is common for teachers in many US states too -- spend X years teaching where we need you the most and we cover your degree. In the US a teaching degree might be $50,000, and medical degree might be $500,000. I'm not sure I want my state government covering half a million in education costs for one person... I know that we need doctors but I'd want to see some ROI numbers to justify such a high expense.
The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) Scholarship Program and Indian Health Service Scholarship Program will pay for medical school in exchange for agreeing to work in underserved areas for several years. Some states have similar programs. I'm not sure how you would even begin to calculate ROI for that. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R44970
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I lived in Ontario for 18 years and found power to be quite expensive compared to the midwestern US state I lived in before and after. I believe this is due to the concentrated population centers needing to subsidize the transmission to the least populated areas, and would guess this would have an impact on energy costs for data centers in Canada. But again, my experience is (mostly) limited to SW Ontario, where ever…
Quebec has a larger grid and lower rates due to its abundant hydroelectricity. Ontario's relatively high costs are from the supply mix which is about 50% nuclear, 30% hydro, 10% wind, 10% gas. Residential kWh as delivered is currently (no pun intended) about 12 US cents which is a bit high if you're used to Midwestern or Alberta coal but those in California are probably envious.
Alberta doesn't have any coal power plants afaik.
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Nuclear power is a non-starter in IReland because the Sellafield nuclear plant in the UK emitted pollution of various for years but UK officials covered it up. The actual severity of the pollution is open to debate but the loss of trusthad a generational impact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sellafield#Incidents
- To fix these two planks you take a hammer and a nail ... - NO! My uncle hit himself with a hammer real hard last year. It is "is a non-starter". Can we use glue? - Yes, it will be more expensive, less efficient ... - NO! My niece inhaled glue last year. It is "is a non-starter". Can we ...
One of the problems with nuclear is that, for practical and security reasons, you are dependent on an authoritarian regime to run the plant -- a plant that will be inherently not-transparent for the same reasons.
That means you have to trust the authorities in question to tell you the truth about risks like accidental discharges of radioactive waste. In the case of Ireland, which has a long history of being disenfranchised, the trust is understandably broken.
This makes building a new nuclear plant and having it run in your country by the same powers that screwed you over before with the same technology a non-starter.
It seems you didn't read the Sellafield article. If you want to be intellectually honest, I'd suggest starting there. (or at least with the "Incidents" section)
Isn't this a similar issue of doctors raised by taxpayers money doing hair transplant and cosmetic surgeries instead of working in much less profitable hospitals with sick people or European scientists and engineers risen by public education working in American tech companies or super rich people from all over the world buying all the homes in London which is valuable not because of its resources but because of the p…
>Pricing that doesn't account for externalities. Water and power are priced by third parties, if they aren't passing some cost on to datacenters thats not the fault of datacenters. >Those who bear the consequences are not those who reap the benefits Super broad statement that cannot be meaningfully tested. Your power goes up, but your ISP has more and better peers, your emergency services have redundant vxc's between…
Just to be contrarian: what we're talking about is "electricity use from economic activity". This should be good for Ireland but they'll need to build energy capacity to keep up. It's misplaced to be angry about datacenters themselves. There IS value being created, or people wouldn't use the tools. Construction creates jobs, manufacturing the machines in the buildings is a huge global industry; the value people gain…
Of course value is created, the problem is that the value is not created for the people who endure the issues and the pricing is apparently wrong. It is similar to building a SPAM factory somewhere people live on pork, paying higher prices for the pigs and buy all the pigs but not enough for the people who sold you the pigs to use the proceeds to increase the number of pigs or replace them with some other source and…
People should just keep driving inefficient cars rather than having gas prices increase so they can evaluate whether getting a more efficient car makes sense for them.