Datacentres drive up big tech's carbon emissions to a third of those of France
13 points
1 hour ago
| 5 comments
| theguardian.com
| HN
defrost
58 minutes ago
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In related current news:

Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity 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.
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Muromec
37 minutes ago
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23 percent is a bit fucked actually
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Muromec
39 minutes ago
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But... 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

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garganzol
1 hour ago
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For 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.
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cold_pizz4
36 minutes ago
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We don't really need the French on the other hand, how could we live without AI?
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bamboozled
1 hour ago
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Man, we are cooked, literally
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simgt
1 hour ago
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No, wait! The increased productivity will lead to a decoupling of the economy from resources consumption and GHGs emission. Just one more data center.

/s

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bamboozled
27 minutes ago
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It’s such a tiring narrative isn’t it ?
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