Ireland’s datacentres overtake electricity use of all urban homes combined | The Guardian - eviltoast
  • Ben Matthews@sopuli.xyz
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    3 months ago

    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).

    • smeeps@lemmy.mtate.me.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 months ago

      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

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      3 months ago

      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.