Ireland’s datacentres overtake electricity use of all urban homes combined | The Guardian

filister@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 394 points –
Ireland’s datacentres overtake electricity use of all urban homes combined
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Although not an expert on that specific country, I can be sure that ' almost all ' is very misleading, even if it gets a lot upvotes because people find it convenient to blame some big bad other. Even if you have specific data for electricity, don't forget a lot of CO2 is emitted by cars, and also by fuel to heat homes (including some peat in special case of ireland - and in that country a large fraction of GHG emissions is also methane from agriculture).

Also no one ever mentions that the industries are building products for the public. They don't just release CO2 and use electricity for fun lol

Well, in the US, here's a decent breakdown by sector:

  • 30% industry
  • 31% residential & commercial
  • 29% transportation
  • 10% agriculture

I don't know what the breakdown is between residential and commercial, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's pretty even.

And here's data for Ireland:

  • 38% agriculture
  • 21% transportation
  • 14% energy
  • 11% industrial (combined mfg combustion and industrial)
  • 10% residential
  • 5% other

So yeah, unless you count agriculture as "industries," they are one of the smaller factors in Ireland, especially compared to other parts of the world.