13 ms·

If all arable land of Netherlands would be covered in datacenters, they would draw more energy than the entire world production, and would skyrocket the NL GDP

If all arable land of Netherlands would be covered in datacenters, they would draw more energy than the entire world production, and would skyrocket the NL GDP simply from the services required, such as building, installation, guarding, decommissioning and recycling, powering them etc. The capital density per square foot is 4 to 5 times orders of magnitude higher than agriculture, to suggest the two compete for land use is utterly ridiculous. Agriculture competes with urbanization and it will always lose, as it should, because it's not an inherently superior or moral use of land: most of agriculture are ecologically disastrous monocultures drenched in herbicides and fertilizers. A corn field is not a bucolic utopia, but a carefully managed anthropic environment where nature was all but banished for the economic welfare of the rural population.

KennyBlanken 4y ago
> most of agriculture are ecologically disastrous monocultures drenched in herbicides and fertilizers. In the EU they use substantially less pesticides and fertilizers than we do in the US, and have as good or better yields.
- mtts 4y ago
  Maybe that’s just setting a low bar. Dutch agriculture is anything but a bucolic idyl, instead consisting of very large industrial operations owned by an ever decreasing number of companies that produce vast amounts of food for export using imported feed and plowing the manure that remains, truly stupendous amounts, into the soil thereby rendering it effectively dead. Large tracts of the province of Drente, formerly poor and backward and hence, in a way, pretty, have been taken over by lily plantations (yes, the flower) that are absolutely drenched in pesticides. Most food crops are grown in enormous greenhouses that take monstrous amounts of energy to heat and that are lit up 24 hours a day to increase yields, making it difficult for people in surrounding villages to sleep. They are automated as much as possible and the work that can not be automated is done by underpaid immigrant workers living in horrible conditions. So, yes, Dutch agriculture has “as good or better yields”, but it’s still ecologically disastrous.
  - spiderfarmer 4y ago
    It would be a lot more ecologically disastrous to move operations to less suitable areas.
    - shjake 4y ago
      Wouldn’t most other places in Europe be much more suitable though just because of lower population density (and energy prices in some cases)?
      - spiderfarmer 4y ago
        I meant that agriculture in our fertile delta is way more efficient than trying to do the same in other countries with less suitable areas.
        mtts 4y ago
        The agricultural lobby puts this out a lot, but it’s not true. The pig farmers and the dairy farmers that are causing the most problems require vast imports of fodder grown elsewhere. The efficiency of a lot of greenhouse agriculture is questionable as well (which was made obvious when a not insignificant chunk of its production was wound down when supplies of cheap Russian gas dried up.
        spiderfarmer 4y ago
        So energy prices increasing by 300%, eating away profits, on top of record inflation is proof that the whole business is inefficient? Lol, no. Even if a financial shockwave told you anything about the efficiency of green houses (it does not) you can’t base your argument on a war induced fluke.
        mtts 4y ago
        If a business can only exist if energy prices are unrealistically low, then, yes, it is inefficient.
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
>Agriculture competes with urbanization and it will always lose, as it should, because it's not an inherently superior or moral use of land Easy for you to say when you have a full stomach. See what happened in countries that disregard their farmers or agricultural sectors. Food price soared, and social unrest set in leading to crime, anarchy and governments collapsing. People need to eat, simple. Hungry people will eventually turn to crime to survive, including the people paid form your taxes to protect you (police, military, etc) Being agriculturally self sufficient is essential for any country.
- Scarblac 4y ago
  The Netherlands is tiny and the 2nd largest agricultural exporter in the world by value, after the US. After the hunger winter in 1944 we became obsessed with food production but there is such a thing as too much.
  - spiderfarmer 4y ago
    The “export” argument is so stupid when you see how far it is exported. On a US scale this mostly would be within state borders.
    - twixfel 4y ago
      It's not stupid, they're literally exporting it. And I have to add, it's a whole new level of Americentrism that I have never seen before to define the word "export" in terms of the distances between US states.
      - spiderfarmer 4y ago
        It is stupid, because it just makes sense to have agriculture in a fertile area like the river delta in NL. And it doesn’t make sense to focus on protecting the very species that are not able to flourish without human intervention. So, focus on protecting species that do well in nitrogen poor areas in the areas that are actually nitrogen poor. If we move production around to average everything out we’ll end up with a more homogeneous Europe, less production and less biodiversity.
defrost 4y ago
Let them eat datacentres indeed. The counterpoint here is what gross tonnage per annum does the population of the Netherlands consume .. and in the event of supply chain disruptions, should (say) NATO hiccup, to what degree are they self sufficient? Farming and urban land uses aren't a straight either|or, they're a complex need both.
- Why_O_My 4y ago
  60 percent of dutch meat is exported, we can do with a whole lot less.
  - mirekrusin 4y ago
    Exported doesn't mean throwing in the trash, somebody is using and depending on it.
    - spiderfarmer 4y ago
      Also, most of it is only exported for a couple of miles to our nearest neighbors.
    - Why_O_My 4y ago
      I know this meat is still used ofcourse. But with a country as small as ours, there simply are better uses of the space for our country and people.
      - spiderfarmer 4y ago
        There is no space. The land belongs to the farmers. It’s not up to you to decide what should be done with it.
        Thiez 4y ago
        Perhaps we can stop their subsidies and see if they're suddenly willing to sell voluntarily.
Dalewyn 4y ago
[flagged]
- spiderfarmer 4y ago
  It’s just plain arrogance, bossing entire groups of people around.
  - shjake 4y ago
    So offering them enough money so that it would be profitable for them to close their farms is bossing around? Using land for housing or (data center for that matter) is just more efficient most of the time.
    - spiderfarmer 4y ago
      Offering a carrot is okay. But offering a carrot and shit talking them while carrying a big stick is something else isn’t it.
      - spiderfarmer 4y ago
        And also, a datacenter causes way more pollution per square meter so how is that more efficient? They don’t pay much taxes and they don’t have many employees. Even the buildings are off the shelve imported from other countries.
        shjake 4y ago
        > datacenter causes way more pollution per square meter so how is that more efficient How is that a sensible comparison? Are you suggesting that if they spread out servers over a large enough area that would improve this somehow? Like let’s place a rack per every hectare of wheat.. > they don’t have many employees. Yes. The definition of efficiency. Then again modern agricultural is very not labour intense either, just much less efficient space wise.
bojan 4y ago
Except in the Netherlands, where urbanization is actually losing from agriculture. We have a structural housing shortage while 54% of this tiny land's surface is used for agriculture, and then mostly for those disastrous monocultures. Dutch farmers are probably the most privileged group in the country and they are fighting tooth and nail to preserve that status no matter the cost. Anything they say or complain about should be taken with a huge grain of salt.
- spiderfarmer 4y ago
  It sounds so arrogant to say farmers are privileged, while these families have worked for generations to build these farms. There are even people advocating to take the farms from them, if necessary by force. I don’t blame the farmers if they want to hold on to every inch, and to fight for every right they still have.
  - tonyg 4y ago
    No one "worked for generations". We each get one lifetime, that's it.
    - spiderfarmer 4y ago
      My emotion don’t care about your prdantry. I worked on a farm together with my father and grandfather. My grandfather’s grandfather started it as a dirt poor peat digger who lived in a peat house and worked till the day he died. Say what you will about my brothers farm, but I will physically stop anyone trying to it from him. He does a great job producing quality products with minimal emissions, while maintaining the great landscape and animals around him. If you want the destroy all that in favor of datacenters, you’re the problem, not him.
  - bojan 4y ago
    That dubious take, even if true, doesn't give them the right to destroy nature of the entire country. Among other things, their influence on the water management policy has an effect of private homes literally sinking in certain parts of the country.
datadeft 4y ago
Combine this with automation and you get what is happening in the western world from 1970 onward, making the rich richer the poor poorer and stagnating middle class at best.
nec4b 4y ago
Where and how do you get your food?
- Thiez 4y ago
  The Netherlands are the second largest exporter of agricultural products in the world. They can severely reduce farming without endangering domestic food supplies. Of course these products that are consumed would have to be produced somewhere else, but since the pollution (nitrogen) is a local problem, this would still be a net win, and not just moving the problem around.
  - nec4b 4y ago
    >>The Netherlands are the second largest exporter of agricultural products in the world. Amazing! Good for them. One would think such agricultural and engineering powerhouse could solve the nitrogen problem with technology and not resort to destroying one of it's most innovative industries. >>They can severely reduce farming without endangering domestic food supplies. That's probably what the Germans thought when they closed their nuclear power plants. And then the invasion of Ukraine happened. >>Of course these products that are consumed would have to be produced somewhere else, but since the pollution (nitrogen) is a local problem, this would still be a net win, and not just moving the problem around. TIL: polluting some other third world country, with severe lack of environment standards and inefficient agriculture is called a net win.
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  From the restaurant and the supermarket of course? What does "arable land" and "fertile soil" have to do with my vegaburger? It comes neatly wrapped in vacuum-sealed plastic from a factory which from the outside is nearly indiscernible from one of those data centres. As long as I can get my factory-made food from building A while streaming a video of me unwrapping the stuff to the data centre in building B I'm fine so you should be as well. For those who have read Asterix there is this scene in 'The Great Crossing' [1] where the fish monger - Kostunrix in the Dutch version, Unhygienix in the UK, Epidemix in the US - asks what the sea has to do with his fish since he gets it 'fresh from Lutetia' (Paris). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_and_the_Great_Crossing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_and_the_Great_Crossing

KennyBlanken 4y ago

> most of agriculture are ecologically disastrous monocultures drenched in herbicides and fertilizers. In the EU they use substantially less pesticides and fertilizers than we do in the US, and have as good or better yields.

mtts 4y ago
Maybe that’s just setting a low bar. Dutch agriculture is anything but a bucolic idyl, instead consisting of very large industrial operations owned by an ever decreasing number of companies that produce vast amounts of food for export using imported feed and plowing the manure that remains, truly stupendous amounts, into the soil thereby rendering it effectively dead. Large tracts of the province of Drente, formerly poor and backward and hence, in a way, pretty, have been taken over by lily plantations (yes, the flower) that are absolutely drenched in pesticides. Most food crops are grown in enormous greenhouses that take monstrous amounts of energy to heat and that are lit up 24 hours a day to increase yields, making it difficult for people in surrounding villages to sleep. They are automated as much as possible and the work that can not be automated is done by underpaid immigrant workers living in horrible conditions. So, yes, Dutch agriculture has “as good or better yields”, but it’s still ecologically disastrous.
- spiderfarmer 4y ago
  It would be a lot more ecologically disastrous to move operations to less suitable areas.
  - shjake 4y ago
    Wouldn’t most other places in Europe be much more suitable though just because of lower population density (and energy prices in some cases)?
    - spiderfarmer 4y ago
      I meant that agriculture in our fertile delta is way more efficient than trying to do the same in other countries with less suitable areas.
      - mtts 4y ago
        The agricultural lobby puts this out a lot, but it’s not true. The pig farmers and the dairy farmers that are causing the most problems require vast imports of fodder grown elsewhere. The efficiency of a lot of greenhouse agriculture is questionable as well (which was made obvious when a not insignificant chunk of its production was wound down when supplies of cheap Russian gas dried up.
        spiderfarmer 4y ago
        So energy prices increasing by 300%, eating away profits, on top of record inflation is proof that the whole business is inefficient? Lol, no. Even if a financial shockwave told you anything about the efficiency of green houses (it does not) you can’t base your argument on a war induced fluke.
        mtts 4y ago
        If a business can only exist if energy prices are unrealistically low, then, yes, it is inefficient.

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

>Agriculture competes with urbanization and it will always lose, as it should, because it's not an inherently superior or moral use of land Easy for you to say when you have a full stomach. See what happened in countries that disregard their farmers or agricultural sectors. Food price soared, and social unrest set in leading to crime, anarchy and governments collapsing. People need to eat, simple. Hungry people will eventually turn to crime to survive, including the people paid form your taxes to protect you (police, military, etc) Being agriculturally self sufficient is essential for any country.

Scarblac 4y ago
The Netherlands is tiny and the 2nd largest agricultural exporter in the world by value, after the US. After the hunger winter in 1944 we became obsessed with food production but there is such a thing as too much.
- spiderfarmer 4y ago
  The “export” argument is so stupid when you see how far it is exported. On a US scale this mostly would be within state borders.
  - twixfel 4y ago
    It's not stupid, they're literally exporting it. And I have to add, it's a whole new level of Americentrism that I have never seen before to define the word "export" in terms of the distances between US states.
    - spiderfarmer 4y ago
      It is stupid, because it just makes sense to have agriculture in a fertile area like the river delta in NL. And it doesn’t make sense to focus on protecting the very species that are not able to flourish without human intervention. So, focus on protecting species that do well in nitrogen poor areas in the areas that are actually nitrogen poor. If we move production around to average everything out we’ll end up with a more homogeneous Europe, less production and less biodiversity.

defrost 4y ago

Let them eat datacentres indeed. The counterpoint here is what gross tonnage per annum does the population of the Netherlands consume .. and in the event of supply chain disruptions, should (say) NATO hiccup, to what degree are they self sufficient? Farming and urban land uses aren't a straight either|or, they're a complex need both.

Why_O_My 4y ago
60 percent of dutch meat is exported, we can do with a whole lot less.
- mirekrusin 4y ago
  Exported doesn't mean throwing in the trash, somebody is using and depending on it.
  - spiderfarmer 4y ago
    Also, most of it is only exported for a couple of miles to our nearest neighbors.
  - Why_O_My 4y ago
    I know this meat is still used ofcourse. But with a country as small as ours, there simply are better uses of the space for our country and people.
    - spiderfarmer 4y ago
      There is no space. The land belongs to the farmers. It’s not up to you to decide what should be done with it.
      - Thiez 4y ago
        Perhaps we can stop their subsidies and see if they're suddenly willing to sell voluntarily.

Dalewyn 4y ago

[flagged]

spiderfarmer 4y ago
It’s just plain arrogance, bossing entire groups of people around.
- shjake 4y ago
  So offering them enough money so that it would be profitable for them to close their farms is bossing around? Using land for housing or (data center for that matter) is just more efficient most of the time.
  - spiderfarmer 4y ago
    Offering a carrot is okay. But offering a carrot and shit talking them while carrying a big stick is something else isn’t it.
    - spiderfarmer 4y ago
      And also, a datacenter causes way more pollution per square meter so how is that more efficient? They don’t pay much taxes and they don’t have many employees. Even the buildings are off the shelve imported from other countries.
      - shjake 4y ago
        > datacenter causes way more pollution per square meter so how is that more efficient How is that a sensible comparison? Are you suggesting that if they spread out servers over a large enough area that would improve this somehow? Like let’s place a rack per every hectare of wheat.. > they don’t have many employees. Yes. The definition of efficiency. Then again modern agricultural is very not labour intense either, just much less efficient space wise.

bojan 4y ago

Except in the Netherlands, where urbanization is actually losing from agriculture. We have a structural housing shortage while 54% of this tiny land's surface is used for agriculture, and then mostly for those disastrous monocultures. Dutch farmers are probably the most privileged group in the country and they are fighting tooth and nail to preserve that status no matter the cost. Anything they say or complain about should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

spiderfarmer 4y ago
It sounds so arrogant to say farmers are privileged, while these families have worked for generations to build these farms. There are even people advocating to take the farms from them, if necessary by force. I don’t blame the farmers if they want to hold on to every inch, and to fight for every right they still have.
- tonyg 4y ago
  No one "worked for generations". We each get one lifetime, that's it.
  - spiderfarmer 4y ago
    My emotion don’t care about your prdantry. I worked on a farm together with my father and grandfather. My grandfather’s grandfather started it as a dirt poor peat digger who lived in a peat house and worked till the day he died. Say what you will about my brothers farm, but I will physically stop anyone trying to it from him. He does a great job producing quality products with minimal emissions, while maintaining the great landscape and animals around him. If you want the destroy all that in favor of datacenters, you’re the problem, not him.
- bojan 4y ago
  That dubious take, even if true, doesn't give them the right to destroy nature of the entire country. Among other things, their influence on the water management policy has an effect of private homes literally sinking in certain parts of the country.

datadeft 4y ago

Combine this with automation and you get what is happening in the western world from 1970 onward, making the rich richer the poor poorer and stagnating middle class at best.

nec4b 4y ago

Where and how do you get your food?

Thiez 4y ago
The Netherlands are the second largest exporter of agricultural products in the world. They can severely reduce farming without endangering domestic food supplies. Of course these products that are consumed would have to be produced somewhere else, but since the pollution (nitrogen) is a local problem, this would still be a net win, and not just moving the problem around.
- nec4b 4y ago
  >>The Netherlands are the second largest exporter of agricultural products in the world. Amazing! Good for them. One would think such agricultural and engineering powerhouse could solve the nitrogen problem with technology and not resort to destroying one of it's most innovative industries. >>They can severely reduce farming without endangering domestic food supplies. That's probably what the Germans thought when they closed their nuclear power plants. And then the invasion of Ukraine happened. >>Of course these products that are consumed would have to be produced somewhere else, but since the pollution (nitrogen) is a local problem, this would still be a net win, and not just moving the problem around. TIL: polluting some other third world country, with severe lack of environment standards and inefficient agriculture is called a net win.
the_third_wave 4y ago
From the restaurant and the supermarket of course? What does "arable land" and "fertile soil" have to do with my vegaburger? It comes neatly wrapped in vacuum-sealed plastic from a factory which from the outside is nearly indiscernible from one of those data centres. As long as I can get my factory-made food from building A while streaming a video of me unwrapping the stuff to the data centre in building B I'm fine so you should be as well. For those who have read Asterix there is this scene in 'The Great Crossing' [1] where the fish monger - Kostunrix in the Dutch version, Unhygienix in the UK, Epidemix in the US - asks what the sea has to do with his fish since he gets it 'fresh from Lutetia' (Paris). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_and_the_Great_Crossing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asterix_and_the_Great_Crossing