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Datacentres drive up big tech's carbon emissions to a third of those of France
- cold_pizz4 3mo agoWe don't really need the French on the other hand, how could we live without AI?
- JodieBenitez 3mo agoYann Le Cun enters the chat...
- oytis 3mo agoYeah, we are not talking about ecological impact of France enough
- bamboozled 3mo agoMan, we are cooked, literally
- simgt 3mo agoNo, wait! The increased productivity will lead to a decoupling of the economy from resources consumption and GHGs emission. Just one more data center. /s
- bamboozled 3mo agoIt’s such a tiring narrative isn’t it ?
- timschmidt 3mo agoThe solution is simple: require datacenters to overprovision solar panels and grid-scale batteries for themselves, and use that capacity to strengthen the grid and transition off of hydrocarbons.
- ch4s3 3mo agoYou can’t get a grid tie for those panels in most of the US right now. The process for connecting to the grid is done serially, and requires a large study for any new generation.
- timschmidt 3mo agoNo idea what you're talking about. My local utility lit up 100MW of solar over the last year alone. Everywhere I look is doing the same.
- Matticus_Rex 3mo agoHe's talking about the interconnection queue. You see the 100MW of solar they're wiring up, but not the hundreds of gigawatts in the queue.
- timschmidt 3mo agoI imagine it'd be a lot easier to get a giant datacenter through the queue and connected if said datacenter also generated more than it's own needs with solar and grid scale battery. You'd essentially be asking the grid to act as a backup and sink for spare generation. Avoiding a need for central generation capacity buildout.
- ch4s3 3mo ago> I imagine it'd be a lot easier to get a giant datacenter through the queue and connected if said datacenter also generated more than it's own needs You'd be wrong. Projects get evaluated FIFO, and each has to do a grid impact study. Data centers are buying other generation projects to get a better position in line. This is all the result of bad regulation.
- trollbridge 3mo agoSure you can. The datacentre builders just don't want the (fairly modest) extra expense to do so properly. Obviously some preparatory work is required before dumping a lot of extra capacity into the grid. My state allowed the power utilities to charge a modest fee ($10,000 to $100,000, depending on project size) before a yet-to-be-built data centre could demand a large amount of electricity. The amount of planned data centres went down by an order of magnitude. The truth is that most of the data centre builders (not all) do not want to be responsible citizens and are simply extracting value and wealth from other people, including from the power utilities and grid operators.
- garganzol 3mo agoFor a context: France relies heavily on automotive transport, plus it's a home to enormous agricultural sector, tractors are literally everywhere in the country during the summer. To a certain degree, structurally it resembles USA a lot.
- timschmidt 3mo agoHowever they also quite famously rely on a majority of nuclear power for their electric grid. Great for France, but that makes them an already-low carbon emitter compared to many others and an ungenerous comparison.
- defrost 3mo agoIn related current news: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2026/07/11/irish-datacenters-now-guzzle-23-of-the-countrys-electricity/5270013 https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2026/07/11/irish-datacen... The latest figures from Ireland's Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that giant server farms now account for nearly a quarter of the country's metered electricity consumption. Their share rose to 23 percent in 2025 after passing 20 percent in 2023 and 14 percent in 2021 – up from just 5 percent way back in 2015. Luckily this will all be offset by the pot of gold at the end of the AI rainbow.
- Muromec 3mo ago23 percent is a bit fucked actually
- Laurel1234 3mo agoIt's really fucked in the country with the most expensive kWh in all of Europe...
- chvid 3mo agoTax breaks matter more than electricity prices.
- amarcheschi 3mo agoOne more datacenter bro one more datacenter bro please I swear bro one more datacenter and everything will be OK please bro
- simianwords 3mo agoThe optimal number of data centers is just enough so that my personal use is covered. No more. No less. Screw other people’s needs and demands because I know better. Pluralism? What’s that?
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- Muromec 3mo agoBut... Datacenters don't burn anything, right? Powerplants do and we try to switch all the transport and heating and whatever to be electric. So the answer is to build the damb nuclear power and a lot of it and price CO2 emissions at the actual cost of sucking the thing back out if the atmosphere
- black_puppydog 3mo ago> price CO2 emissions at the actual cost of sucking the thing back out if the atmosphere This is the only relevant bit actually. The rest will follow from there. And in principle, at least in Europe, we already have some mechanisms to do this. We'd "just" have to up the prices. BUT of course with the right wing on the advance, and with them having identified basic physics (i.e. climate change) as a culture war terrain, this keeps being watered down... Oh well... This is why we can't have nice things... like a future...
- 59percentmore 3mo ago*raise the prices
- simianwords 3mo ago[flagged]
- DangitBobby 3mo agoIf enough climate systems collapse, lots of existing farms will no longer be viable. That means famine and migration, which means war, which means lots of death. I don't know anyone who thinks we'll see extinction (outside of possible "hothouse earth" scenarios, where we become a second Venus) but societal collapse is definitely on the table. Saying this is "not scientific" would just be you not understanding the science.
- simianwords 3mo ago> Saying this is "not scientific" would just be you not understanding the science. Please show me sources that the current emissions would lead to "lots of death"? Show me any decent modelling of emissions vs annual death? This one shows a million more deaths annually if we have even more emissions in 100 years than now. Million more deaths is around 2% increase in death rate compared to the hypothetical without emissions. This means even in the worst case of higher emissions in the future than now, also no technological progress, we would still be in better living conditions in the future than now. What is your answer to this? https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59bf26af29f187c6f3a9fbbf/t/678f111666f6b97afdd39e9c/1737429272631/JMP.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59bf26af29f187c6f3a9f...
- oceanplexian 3mo ago[flagged]
- ChrisArchitect 3mo agoRelated: Microsoft latest report shows 25% emissions raised due to AI data centers https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48870229 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48870229
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- spicyusername 3mo agoPretty small if you consider the value they provide, honestly. And they'll ride the transition to green energy for "free".
- pebble 3mo agoIs this value in the room with us?
- baggy_trough 3mo agoDo you know what site you're on?
- runarberg 3mo agoAI produces way more harm then value.
- amazingamazing 3mo agolegality of the datacenters aside, I wonder why countries don't at least demand that they're totally carbon neutral or free. it's possible today. it's not like it's sci-fi.
- jezzamon 3mo agoI think most ways of obtaining carbon neutrality are a little bit BS, that's why. An alternative is what Google is theoretically aiming for: being carbon-free. But they've already started using language describing it as a moonshot or idealistic goal so seems likely they'll abandon that https://sustainability.google/reports/247-carbon-free-energy/ https://sustainability.google/reports/247-carbon-free-energy...
- Laurel1234 3mo agoCarbon offsets are absolutely a scam but you could easily force data centers to provide their own renewable energy.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- fulafel 3mo agoUSA is partly a petrostate so regulatory capture is a problem. Negative externalities are not paid for by the polluters. To mitigate the climate catastrophe it would be important to ramp down fossil fuel production in a big hurry. In Europe this is covered by the emission trading system (EU ETS) and datacenters have to share the same shrinking emissions quota as other industries.
- altern8 3mo agoNot to worry. There are laws in the EU that will save the planet, like drinking from soggy paper straws instead of normal ones and requiring caps stay attached in plastic bottles. And just to make sure, at least in Poland they now charge you $0.10 if you buy anything plastic until you bring it back to the grocery store empty. We are safe.
- mike_hock 3mo agoIt literally has only downsides except some convenience for people who don't want to think and don't want to work.