Huge new @beyondfossilfuels.bsky.social report - EU's data centre frenzy could enable 121 megatonnes of CO2-e "New data centre demand alone could consume as much as the added power needed for the electrification of the entire transport sector in the EU by 2030" @jillmcardle.bsky.social - ThreadSky

ketanjoshi.co • 22 days ago

Huge new @beyondfossilfuels.bsky.social report - EU's data centre frenzy could enable 121 megatonnes of CO2-e

"New data centre demand alone could consume as much as the added power needed for the electrification of the entire transport sector in the EU by 2030"

@jillmcardle.bsky.social

Comments

adamcalo.bsky.social•21 days ago

📌

sydneyev.bsky.social•21 days ago

If only they could be encouraged to make it more efficient aka deepseek. Or legislate growth must be matched with renewable energy sources?

beccasmullet.bsky.social•21 days ago

Stop the effing crypto and AI!

sarapeltola.bsky.social•21 days ago

📌

thoseos.bsky.social•21 days ago

Is anyone doing research to compare the benefits that will be provided by the data centres to the damage powering them will cause? Because this is just plain crazy.

patrickmeier.bsky.social•21 days ago

Wow

alpha10.bsky.social•21 days ago

all of this for some shitty text and image generators. it’s depressing as hell. :-(

ketanjoshi.co•21 days ago

+ forgot the link sorry!
https://beyondfossilfuels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/SystemOverload_Report_BeyondFossilFuels.pdf

So this finding is important: imagine 100% of new data centre demand is met purely by clean energy.

Where does that clean energy come from? What was its fate, without these new data centres? In this case, total GHGs can still rise!

lnkii.bsky.social•21 days ago

📌

ketanjoshi.co•21 days ago

Even in the 'low demand' scenario, the energy draw of Europe's data centres more than doubles before 2030.

Worst case: they're eating up as much energy as the country of Spain, in a few years' time.

https://beyondfossilfuels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/SystemOverload_Report_BeyondFossilFuels.pdf

ketanjoshi.co•21 days ago

In an even worst case (high data centre demand and low renewable growth - a real possibility given the right of the tech-fascist right)

Imagine all of Germany's fossil gas plants, and just doubling them - that's what data centre growth could enable in Europe:

https://beyondfossilfuels.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/SystemOverload_Report_BeyondFossilFuels.pdf

ketanjoshi.co•21 days ago

So this is where @jillmcardle.bsky.social's report gets extra clever I think: they also analyse the consequences of the 'perfect outcome' - ie, what happens if all the new renewables for data centres has been diverted from decarbonisation in other sectors??

ketanjoshi.co•21 days ago

Well - if all the new clean energy has been diverted from uses elsewhere, that's a whopping 20% of the required renewables elsewhere being requisitionied by tech bros to power pointless chatbots and spammy images.

ketanjoshi.co•21 days ago

"New data centre demand alone could consume as much as the added power needed for the electrification of the entire transport sector in the EU by 2030"

Now you see why I got so riled up at all of the dismissiveness around data centre growth, right? The numbers just don't justify the glibness.

galileo1835.bsky.social•22 days ago

Why we assume that they will be powered by dirty energy? In EU?

jillmcardle.bsky.social•22 days ago

we don't assume it will be, but we see good reasons to worry that it might, in ireland gas is being used for new data centres. Europe has a lot of RE but the demand from DCs could vastly outstrip it

alpha10.bsky.social•21 days ago

because that’s the easiest for them.

mateloos.be•22 days ago

While we are far from zero carbon (heck, we're around peak carbon;), it doesn't matter if any industry in itself runs on wind or solar: that carbon neutral energy could have been put to use to reduce actual emissions elsewhere.

galileo1835.bsky.social•22 days ago

I think it is not so easy that if we dont build AI centers we build renewable energy, I dont know, in India...

Comments

Posting Rules

Reply