Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 329 posts

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

#301

Post by teamonkey »

antonvs wrote: post #291
teamonkey wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it’s excessive. Questions should be asked about any one industry using 23% of a nation’s generating capacity, when it was not built for this purpose. Of course it’s excessive. Ireland’s electricity is not cheap or in such plentiful supply that homes are not affective by this. These data centres are driving up the electricity prices for everyone in Ireland. Of course it’s excessive. There are only 80 datacen…

None of your statements give objective conclusions, unless one accepts as premises the implicit value judgments and other subjective assessments they depend on. It shouldn't surprise you to know that there are people who disagree with everything you're saying. Do you really believe they're all "objectively wrong"? That's the territory of religion - "only my beliefs are the real ones".

Merriam-Webster says:

“Excessive: exceeding what is usual, proper, necessary, or normal”

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/excessive

The power use of data centres is objectively exceeding what is usual or normal. Therefore it is objectively excessive.

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

#302

Post by HDThoreaun »

syntaxing wrote: post #95
mrtksn wrote: post #77

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…

In certain Asian countries, medical education is 100% covered but you must work at a public hospital for X years. I honestly think it’s very fair. If tax payers full funds your education, it should be mandatory to work in public services for X amount of years.

There are programs that work this way in the US too. Most doctors arent interested because the pay cut you take working for the poor hospitals/military for a decade arent worth the paid off loan.

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

#303

Post by HDThoreaun »

cbmuser wrote: post #68

Ireland consumes roughly 40 TWh per year, that’s less than the production of four EPR reactors or two times Hinkley Point C. The country could easily solve its electricity problems with nuclear power. They can ask South Korea for help who built four reactors in UAE with 12 years which now provide 25% of the country’s electricity.

Nuclear takes minimum 15 years to build. Even if they started in earnest theyd still have problems for over a decade

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

#304

Post by antonvs »

teamonkey wrote: post #301
antonvs wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of your statements give objective conclusions, unless one accepts as premises the implicit value judgments and other subjective assessments they depend on. It shouldn't surprise you to know that there are people who disagree with everything you're saying. Do you really believe they're all "objectively wrong"? That's the territory of religion - "only my beliefs are the real ones".

Merriam-Webster says: “Excessive: exceeding what is usual, proper, necessary, or normal” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/excessive The power use of data centres is objectively exceeding what is usual or normal. Therefore it is objectively excessive.

"Usual, proper, necessary, or normal" for what purpose?

For data centers, none of those adjectives are being exceeded, so it's not excessive. Ireland is not using more power to run its data centers than anywhere else is, for data centers of a similar size.

To justify the claim of "excessive", you need to define some standard against which that's being measured. That choice of standard is necessarily subjective.

Again, this attempt to reframe subjective claims as objective is an act of either ignorance (not understanding what "objective" means) or zealotry (believing your opinions are the only ones that can be correct, and therefore "objective".) Either way, you need to examine what you're claiming more closely.

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

#305

Post by breppp »

alephnerd wrote: post #34
breppp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That and misappropriating a lot of the taxes of other countries in the process

It's not misappropriation. Other countries within the EU could be much more business incorporation and FDI friendly, and IDA Ireland tends to be one of the more competent trade promotion agencies within the EU. Why should Ireland undermine 13% of it's GDP [0]? Edit: can't reply > Telling American multinationals you will have them pay 0 tax isn't exactly a "tax policy" as such Ireland's corporate tax rate is 12.5% but…

The low corporate tax might be fair although questionable, however the entire Double Irish Dutch Sandwich mechanism was a way to take taxes of other countries citizens

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

#306

Post by AlecSchueler »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #288
erentz wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There IS value being created, or people wouldn't use the tools. But for who and where is it realized? Ireland’s massive data centers aren’t there to serve Ireland’s tiny population. The value is exported overseas and profits realized overseas. So what really matters for Ireland (and any country/region hosting these data centers) is whether the benefits in terms of capital spending + the few ongoing jobs created out…

So we hating exports now? Is this post-globalist forum now?

Honestly kind of yes. The world is burning, and we can't keep growing like this. Tech optimism made some sense 20 years ago but a lot of us who have been here in that time are feeling pretty jaded.

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

#307

Post by loeg »

dyauspitr wrote: post #256
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.

Doesn’t picking the variable rate plan mean your day time costs are priced higher? It does where I am. It’s 10c/kWh on the regular plan but on variable it’s 14c during the day and 7c off hours.

Yes. 13.4c flat rate; 16.1c peak, 8.1c trough on the variable rate plan (Seattle).

https://www.seattle.gov/city-light/residential-services/bill...

And the time periods are: https://www.seattle.gov/images/Departments/CityLight/Residen...

So you're paying a marginally higher rate almost all day on variable-rate, but substantially higher 5-9pm. The math pencils if you have a home battery you can use to load-shift, or perhaps drive an EV a lot.

(Also: this structure is clearly designed around summer cooling load, but peak load is actually winter heating. I don't know what SCL is thinking.)

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

#308

Post by alephnerd »

breppp wrote: post #305
alephnerd wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not misappropriation. Other countries within the EU could be much more business incorporation and FDI friendly, and IDA Ireland tends to be one of the more competent trade promotion agencies within the EU. Why should Ireland undermine 13% of it's GDP [0]? Edit: can't reply > Telling American multinationals you will have them pay 0 tax isn't exactly a "tax policy" as such Ireland's corporate tax rate is 12.5% but…

The low corporate tax might be fair although questionable, however the entire Double Irish Dutch Sandwich mechanism was a way to take taxes of other countries citizens

The "Double Irish Dutch Sandwich" approach ended almost a decade ago as I mentioned, yet tech FDI remains strong and a hallmark of Ireland's economy.

We're still investing in Ireland because IDA and Enterprise Ireland are competent.

And at the end of the day, Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus, Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Austria, Czechia, Hungary, Germany, Poland, Netherlands, and Croatia have all voted with or abstained in favor of Ireland when questions about Ireland's approach came up in the EU.

The primary countries complaining have been France, Italy, and Spain.

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

#309

Post by Schiendelman »

loeg wrote: post #307
dyauspitr wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t picking the variable rate plan mean your day time costs are priced higher? It does where I am. It’s 10c/kWh on the regular plan but on variable it’s 14c during the day and 7c off hours.

Yes. 13.4c flat rate; 16.1c peak, 8.1c trough on the variable rate plan (Seattle). https://www.seattle.gov/city-light/residential-services/bill... And the time periods are: https://www.seattle.gov/images/Departments/CityLight/Residen... So you're paying a marginally higher rate almost all day on variable-rate, but substantially higher 5-9pm. The math pencils if you have a home battery you can use to load-shift, or pe…

When do you think winter energy is at peak load?

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

#310

Post by loeg »

Schiendelman wrote: post #309
loeg wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. 13.4c flat rate; 16.1c peak, 8.1c trough on the variable rate plan (Seattle). https://www.seattle.gov/city-light/residential-services/bill... And the time periods are: https://www.seattle.gov/images/Departments/CityLight/Residen... So you're paying a marginally higher rate almost all day on variable-rate, but substantially higher 5-9pm. The math pencils if you have a home battery you can use to load-shift, or pe…

When do you think winter energy is at peak load?

~6am.
Post reply on HN