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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

#311

Post by breppp »

alephnerd wrote: post #308
breppp wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

I thought that went on until 2020, in any case, sure after the corporate taxes of the entire world were funneled there and had created data centers and imported a workforce to Ireland, it is now a place worth investing in.

However that does not make this construct any more moral

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

#312

Post by teamonkey »

antonvs wrote: post #304
teamonkey wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I posted several metrics by which the power used by these data centres is ‘excessive’.

You’ve decided that those don’t matter and you’ve created some other metrics by which you could consider the power use typical.

But just because you’ve found a way to say that they’re typical in one way, that doesn’t mean they’re not excessive in another way. They do use power to excess in some ways, therefore it’s perfectly legitimate to describe them as excessive in that way.

Data centres’ power use is becoming a problem for multiple reasons. The problem isn’t going to be solved by denying that a problem exists, or by taking offense when an adjective is used that draws attention to said problem.

> zealotry (believing your opinions are the only ones that can be correct)

Indeed.

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

#313

Post by s1artibartfast »

wat10000 wrote: post #284
s1artibartfast wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe that’s how it is in some places. In others, there’s no obligation after receiving a subsidized education, and this would be a way to fix that. I doubt many people would propose or defend a system where graduates are required to work for the state or go to prison.

Its certainly possible. There have many governments that claimed to own a citizens time, with just that effect. If people chose to work less, they were sentenced to gulags or death.

I was recently reading about the poet Joseph Brodsky's trial for sicial parisitism in the Krushchev era.

They committed the crime of unauthorized use of personal time to right poetry.

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

#314

Post by infinite_spin »

spwa4 wrote: post #295
infinite_spin wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should Ireland, a historically poor nation that has been exploited by European powers for centuries, be concerned with the taxes that other (much larger) governments collect? The entire point of tax sovereignty is to avoid this exact issue.

So they should take away other people's money because they can, because of stuff that happened a long time ago, and when they feel like they should be able to just take stuff from other people for some random long ago reason ? I'm so exited finding someone like you! I'm much like Ireland. I was born desperately poor. My parents gave me second hand presents on , if that. I couldn't pay for my school things back then.…

> So they should take away other people's money because they can

Ireland isn't stealing from other people by changing their tax policies to attract business, that isn't theft by any stretch of the imagination outside of a libertarian one that posits all taxation is theft.. and you haven't answered my question: Why should Ireland change their tax policy to benefit other (much larger) governments?

It's fairly insulting that you've described the Irish as thieves, something Europeans have done for centuries, just because you want more tax revenue for other, much larger, governments.

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

#315

Post by paddim8 »

pbgcp2026 wrote: post #144

The very first country in EU who will make electricity dirt-cheap will win the "Sovereign EU AI Tech" war. That includes produce cheap electricity, cutting the redtape and curbing the Unions mafia. So .. not happening. Back to the US ...

It's already dirt cheap in northern Sweden and northern Norway

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

#316

Post by HDBaseT »

testing22321 wrote: post #251
HDBaseT wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better than kicking the can down the road. Energy is effectively always going to be needed. In 20 years time the same response will be spouted, it will make you wish you did something 20 years before when it was originally discussed.

Right now solar plus batteries is cheaper. It 20 years it will be vastly so

I'd also be happy with this too. Solar is great.

I'm still not versed enough on the environmental impacts of batteries. There is a lot of battery tech advancements in the past decade.

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

#317

Post by protocolture »

danaris wrote: post #258
protocolture wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theres no reason for AI hate to bleed over to Data Center hate. I really cant be stuffed defending AI. It either succeeds or it doesnt. But we get so much value from Data Centers and there's basically no one lauding them as an industry. Its like people waking up one morning and hating trains. Its like people just discovered they existed yesterday and hate them for no reason.

We get loads of value from various industries. That doesn't mean we would benefit from expanding those industries by triple-digit percents just to increase the profits of multibillion-dollar corporations without some pretty strong justifications. In this case, "data centers" don't benefit anyone in and of themselves . They are merely a container for, well, data . And compute. So the degree to which they benefit us de…

>That doesn't mean we would benefit from expanding those industries by triple-digit percents just to increase the profits of multibillion-dollar corporations without some pretty strong justifications.

Ok but people are crowing against existing data centers.

>In this case, "data centers" don't benefit anyone in and of themselves

Yeah they do.

>They are merely a container for, well, data. And compute.

No they are also neutral hosts of telecommunications infrastructure where carriers can meet.

This is like saying that you like emergency services calls but want to blow up the wires that carry them.

>The datacenters are the AI that happens within them.

Patently ridiculous.

>That's literally the only reason so many more are being built now.

No you really just started paying attention.

Also "So Many" whats the correct number of Datacenters to be built? How are you calculating that? What happens if AI instead cannibalises existing rack space instead of expanding? What happens to industries that rely on colo when these trillion dollar companies make better offers for their rackspace? Do they just go nowhere? This is like attacking houses because you don't like a subset of tenants.

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

#318

Post by jimmydddd »

davkan wrote: post #227
SR2Z wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the famine a potato-specific blight?

Yes but the death toll was in large part because of Britain forcing the Irish to export everything that wasn’t a potato among a myriad of other oppressive practices.

And while I was taught repeatedly in school that all the Irish folks came to the US due to the potato famine, I don't ever recall anyone mentioning the forced exporation of other food to India, etc. Didn't learn it until I was like 50 years old. lol.

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

#319

Post by Schiendelman »

loeg wrote: post #310
Schiendelman wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When do you think winter energy is at peak load?

~6am.

The morning and evening peak loads are about the same. But in the morning, hydro generation is higher, because the Skagit dams hold back water overnight and spin up for morning peak. Evening peak is when there isn't that excess generation available.

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

#320

Post by dzhiurgis »

AlecSchueler wrote: post #306
dzhiurgis wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That is insane take. Datacenters are built where it makes most economic sense (aka cheapest aka cleanest power).

If you build where power is expensive - you are burning world even more.

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