Comment on Climate goals go up in smoke as US datacenters turn to coal
JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks agoThere’s one exception - when they are self-sufficient, or even net positive, with renewables.
One example is the Google datacenter in Hamina, Finland. They build it in an old unused paper mill, built their own solar farm, and they use the cooling loop for district heating for the city.
That extra heat provides around 75% of the required heating, meaning the city could stop relying on their old natural gas heaters so now the district heating runs on renewables as well.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
I’ll begrudgingly concede that this is a good point.
Part of me wants to say “just force these assholes to build renewables without the datacentres” but I know that’s nonsensical.
I guess this is how carbon credit schemes are intended to work, but I’m aware that aside from a few specific cases carbon trading has just been a way to obfuscate carbon emissions.