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Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity

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Re: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity

#231

Post by doubleg72 »

hunterpayne wrote: post #170
vkou wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most data centers do not use closed loop cooling. 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 cent…

Do you honestly think that the very detailed understanding of cooling systems that you have has anything in common with the popular opinion that datacenters use lots of water? Also, you are arguing jargon...and data centers use completely closed loop designs where it makes sense (very cheap power) and use what you describe where it makes sense (with more expensive power and cheaper water). Finally, nothing you said d…

Goalposts not just moved but obliterated

Re: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity

#232

Post by hunterpayne »

doubleg72 wrote: post #231
hunterpayne wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you honestly think that the very detailed understanding of cooling systems that you have has anything in common with the popular opinion that datacenters use lots of water? Also, you are arguing jargon...and data centers use completely closed loop designs where it makes sense (very cheap power) and use what you describe where it makes sense (with more expensive power and cheaper water). Finally, nothing you said d…

Goalposts not just moved but obliterated

Stop playing political with science!

Re: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity

#233

Post by hinkley »

hunterpayne wrote: post #205
hinkley wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes it worse! A euro is worth about 10% more than a dollar. Ireland has a lot of oil in their power mix from what I'm seeing, so that makes a bit of sense. Maybe the high power cost is why they're deploying ~600GWh of new wind capacity per year for the last 15 years. Because at those rates the wholesale prices should be able to subsidize a lot of loans.

We don't measure capacity in GWh, we measure it in GW. And if Ireland had 600GW of wind, their entire island would be surrounded by a forest of windmills. Also, Ireland lacks any energy storage so none of that wind can be used for baseload, only variable load.

> We don't measure capacity in GWh

I cannot even express how much hatred I have for bad charts, and getting tricked by one anyway when I go in already expecting it to be lying to me is incandescently indescribable.

On Wikipedia there's a very progressive-looking chart that is measuring in TWh/year and going up up up. And as you say,

>Ireland lacks any energy storage so none of that wind can be used for baseload

You always measure baseload in GW or if you're fancy, TW.

So what that chart is really saying is that Wind is adding on average about 70 KW of capacity per year, when amortized over 24 hours. Which is probably on the order of an additional .3GW of capacity per year when the sun is shining and bupkis the rest of the time.

Although given how overcast that region is, maybe measuring solar in TWh/year is a bit excusable, and then they end up measuring everything else that way?

Re: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity

#234

Post by protocolture »

mrtksn wrote: post #159
protocolture wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

It's not important whose fault it is, I am sure that the datacenter people believe that they got such a good deal and everything is peachy.

It does matter. Screeching about datacenters when you cant get your polity to price energy correctly is not an issue with datacenters.

Re: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity

#235

Post by zeofig »

protocolture wrote: post #149
hackerSkoolRoot wrote: post #27

Are we allowed post masto links? I'm an Irish techie. I shot a video about this. Sorry about the camera shake: https://mastodon.ie/@handi/116900076149521593

How are datacenters not critical internet infrastructure?

Some data centers, sure. 23% of the country's energy worth? I don't think so. Training LLMs is not critical digital infrastructure.

Re: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity

#236

Post by dilyevsky »

jamesfinlayson wrote: post #193
dboreham wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That said, once built and lit up, it's hard to move a data center to another country.

Yep, seen a data-centre move happen at work (from a distance - I wasn't effected). For a business with cross-data centre redundancy and no allowable down-time for core business, it was at least a year-long project I think. All for a data-centre in the same city.

A year isnt very long considering sums involved here. At a certain hyperscaler a full dc build out took 2-3 years but we heard that aws did that in a year all in. And also musk proved you can do it literally over holiday break but you don’t have to go that extreme - just dont let cya pmcs do it

Re: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity

#237

Post by rogerrogerr »

gravypod wrote: post #139
hx8 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There was an article posted on HN recently about the asymmetry in cost of providing an ambulance service vs the cost of the per-ride service. The cost of a medical degree, and the training on top of the degrees, may seem waaay too high but I am sure that when you need the service you want it to be there. I think if I break a leg, need an emergency surgery, etc I will be okay with $0.00001 of my taxes going into the p…

At least in the US, the dudes who pick you up in the ambulance do not have medical degrees. They have various certifications that are far less than med-school levels of debt.

Re: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity

#238

Post by protocolture »

zeofig wrote: post #235
protocolture wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are datacenters not critical internet infrastructure?

Some data centers, sure. 23% of the country's energy worth? I don't think so. Training LLMs is not critical digital infrastructure.

>23% of the country's energy worth?

Dude thats highly unlikely to be LLM training. If anything its cloud. And its cloud because Ireland has been deliberately making itself an attractive place for large businesses to invest.

>In 2016–17, foreign firms paid 80% of Irish corporate tax, employed 25% of the Irish labour force (paid 50% of Irish salary tax), and created 57% of Irish OECD non-farm value-add.

Other people have spilled enough words here that it should be obvious if you read other comments on this thread that Ireland has ridiculously tiny energy grid. The other part of the picture is that the deliberately court foreign multinationals.

Suddenly sitting bolt upright in your chair and screaming "LLMS!!!!!" makes no sense at all.

Re: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity

#239

Post by s1artibartfast »

wat10000 wrote: post #225
s1artibartfast wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, student loans are not slavery for two reasons. First, the borrower agreed and signed a contract. Second, the debt owner is the one calling it due. This is substantially different than expecting control on how debt free doctors or engineers spend their time or what jobs they work. The crux of this is that externalty price analysis is only useful when bounded by real harms and property rights . Otherwise, anyone ca…

The doctors would also have agreed and signed a contract. And the debt owner i.e. the state is calling it due.

Are you claiming that is a fact about the world today or suggesting it as your future hypothetical?

Seems fine if the government or another group was willing to lend or pay for education in exchange for future services.

I think it would be bad policy if the government made this the only way or a licensing requirement.

There are also some moral hazards if the exit Clauses aren't reasonable.

Re: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity

#240

Post by Schiendelman »

loeg wrote: post #228
Schiendelman wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle now has variable rate. I pull most of my power at night, when it's 8c/kWh.

Nice. I had heard they were planning this, but last time I looked into it, they hadn't rolled it out yet. You have some kind of home battery?

Honestly my biggest draw is charging my car, so I scheduled that. I do have a 3kWh LFP battery I have as an emergency supply, and since it's in my office anyway I charge my laptop off it, and schedule the wall plug it's on. I scheduled the AC to move the house temp up or down at night. On especially hot or cold days I'm sure I'll use it more at other times. :)
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