Ten UK data centres could cancel EV emissions gain
https://observer.co.uk/news/business/article/ten-uk-data-centres-could-cancel-ev-emissions-gain
Posted by Wagamaga
Ten UK data centres could cancel EV emissions gain
https://observer.co.uk/news/business/article/ten-uk-data-centres-could-cancel-ev-emissions-gain
Posted by Wagamaga
12 Comments
Plans to build 10 large data centres in the UK could effectively wipe out the carbon emissions saved by switching to electric cars in 2025, research has found.
Analysis of developer’s plans by non-profit Foxglove and environmental charity Global Action Plan reveals that of more than 100 data centres planned in the UK, the operation of just 10 would result in annual carbon emissions of 2,745,538 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tC02e). This is roughly the same as the annual carbon saving expected this year from the public’s switch to electric vehicles, which the Climate Change Committee puts at 2.9m tonnes.
Does anyone else feel like our species had an unending march of progress until about 10ish years ago and since then it’s been 1 step forward, two steps back?
If the country had actually increased its renewable power supply and grid capacity (to distribute the power) enough to replace gas in the last few years, we’d have the extra capacity for this too and it wouldn’t be a big problem.
Remember most building heating is still not electric so there needs to be much more electricity generation added in the next few years to decarbonise that (let alone to remove other carbon emitting energy sources).
Yawn bad science and worse NIMBY.
That is true if you factor in the existing energy mix when it comes to electricity production, which isn’t going to be the case as renewables and hopefully again nuclear are going to become more and more prevalent in our electricity supply.
Datacenters are the new factories like it, hate it, disagree with the principle it doesn’t matter you can’t argue with the facts.
The UK will consume these services anyhow, the question where they’ll be offered and this is just the classical Guard/Observer mentality by always making it about how UK is bad.
These datacenters will go up, climate change doesn’t care where the emissions happen if anything you would want them to be build somewhere where you have control over what ends up feeding them.
Building datacenters will also lead to investment in the energy infrastructure of this country because a) they need a lot of power and b) they need cheap power at that scale it’s mass scale renewables and nuclear.
Companies like Facebook and Microsoft are building their own power plants ffs, were talking about gigawatts scale power projects.
Giving up on this would be short sighted and counter productive even if you only care about hitting emissions targets. Not to mention yet another shooting yourself in the foot moment when it comes to the economy.
I honestly can’t tell if the morons behind these takes are that stupid or are they just getting their feed from Russia-China-Qatar et al……..
So we just decide to do nothing, same as the last 20 years?
We believe everything what mainstream media tells us
There will be efficiencies coming though with running AI.
This is a good paper, essentially there is a possibility of reducing energy needs by 20% for AI. As well as having models run locally in robotics.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43588-025-00854-1#Abs1
We should shut down everything in the UK to stop climate change since we have a massive impact on global emissions
[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-ai-bubble-is-17-times-the-size-of-the-dot-com-frenzy-this-analyst-argues-046e7c5c](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-ai-bubble-is-17-times-the-size-of-the-dot-com-frenzy-this-analyst-argues-046e7c5c)
AI is going to bankrupt a lot of people when the bubble pops.
I’m sorry, but I don’t give a fuck
We just not going to progress because of emissions? While every other country does whatever the fuck they like?
Grow up
They are going to get built somewhere. Where ever that is, it will create emissions into the same atmosphere.
This is hardly news. Everyone involved must be acutely aware by now that we need to keep building wind, solar, battery, nuclear plus invest in other renewables while also fixing the grid to avoid an increase in the intensity of use of our gas power stations from increased demands on the grid and let’s be honest data centre is the tip of the melting iceberg climate change will likely see an increased need for Aircon and we’re switching away from fossil fuels to heat our homes and fuel our cars.
Just keep building renewables, don’t look back.