Ireland is a ‘cautionary tale’ on data centres
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance. We begin with the news that data centres here are using the same amount of energy as all of our urban homes combined. A UN report has cited Ireland as a cautionary tale on the environmental impact of data centres. Well, Caroline O'Doherty is climate and science correspondent with the Irish Times and she has the story. And we're also joined by Rosie Leonard, data centre campaign lead at Friends of the Earth Ireland. Caroline, I'll come to you first. Thank you for being with us on the programme this morning.
What energy demands do data centres in Ireland have?
I suppose it is frightening for some listening today to have Ireland cited in this report as an example of how not to handle data centres. What does this report say?
Yes, Clare, it says what we've known here in Ireland is about the extraordinary electricity demands of data centres. But when you kind of see it in this international report and where, if you like, top of the class for being bottom of the class of what not to do, it does put a kind of a new light on it. This report, it makes the point that, you know, look, data centres are with us. AI is expanding massively and they call it data centres are the physical infrastructure for artificial intelligence.
How has Ireland been cited as a cautionary tale regarding data centres?
And if you're going to accommodate that In any country, you have to look at the environmental impacts. And one of the environmental impacts comes from the energy use, which is electricity in Ireland's case. At the moment, the data centres that we have are using more than a fifth of all the electricity generated in the country. All the extra data centres that have permission to connect to the electricity grid when they get going, they'll be then taking up about a third or more of all the electricity in the country. And then we have a whole load of new data centres that want to be built. We have data centre backers who want to develop them. So we have this issue because the electricity supply hasn't been keeping up.
We're trying to decarbonise the electricity system here. So we're trying to switch over from mainly burning gas to generate electricity, some oil too in emergencies, if you like. And we have renewables, we have wind and we have solar. But we're kind of stuck at this kind of wind and solar can't, if you like, we want to get that to at least 80% of all our electricity generation and then get it to 100%. In a relatively short space of time, we want to make those leaps. But if the electricity demand keeps growing, which is by data centres, it's very hard to make that change when you're also just trying to keep up with electricity demand. So that's one of the issues they're raising.
What's happened is we have said to data centres, come on in, you're welcome, but our infrastructure hasn't kept up to meet the demand or we're at risk, certainly, of there being a gap here. Now, isn't it the case, though, that the data centres will be required to secure their own energy needs or up to 80% of them anyway?
So there's this new policy that was brought out at the end of last year. So setting aside the ones that are currently operating and setting aside the ones that have grid connection agreements, the new tranche of them, if you like, they're kind of waiting in the wings. The idea was that they would be told you have to produce 80% of, you have to produce your own electricity. So you can't be dragging from what we're generating.
What are the environmental impacts of data centres in Ireland?
You have to generate electricity. How do you generate electricity? You generate it by gas generators or by wind or by solar. They're being told that they'll have to provide their electricity, 80% of it through wind or solar renewables. They've been given a six-year lead-in time for that. So in the meantime, they can bang up a gas generator and burn gas away. And the CO2 that comes from that, when we're talking greenhouse gas emissions, that doesn't disappear after six years. That's there forever. And then as they go on, You'll still have that kind of 20 percent. They can still rely on fossil fuels. And 20 percent of something very large is very large.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:01–0:38
2
What energy demands do data centres in Ireland have?
0:38–1:22
3
How has Ireland been cited as a cautionary tale regarding data centres?
1:22–3:22
4
What are the environmental impacts of data centres in Ireland?
3:22–7:42
5
How much electricity do data centres consume in Ireland?
7:42–11:04