What exactly are they trying to accomplish? I doubt they would just abandon the project. They would just redo the concrete which would emit even more emissions.
Right, all they're going to do is rip the concrete out and repour it, causing even more damage to the environment (concrete production and curing is unbelievably C02 intensive)
I don't disagree we shouldn't be expanding power consumption unless we've moved the vast majority (>90%) of the load off fossil fuels, but this certainly didn't help anything.
Ruining concrete seems to go against extinction rebellion main goal. According to the World Economic Forum the co2 released during ciment production account for 8% of global co2 emissions, datancenter are estimated to contribute between 1 and 2 percent....
> Personally I think data centers should pay a 100% fossil fuel tax. Markets respond to incentives.
Yes, by changing the incentives to align with their desires.
I guarantee if a politician had a serious chance of introducing something like this that record breaking amounts of money would be poured into even a primary election these days to stop them.
They threw balloons… over a fence, while they like drama, this is unlikely to have had any effect on a cured structural slab. I doubt they even managed to get industrial strength peroxide.
An obvious point, but if Europe wants sovereign onshore AI, they have to get these people under control. It's easy for Microsoft to simply build EU-serving datacenters elsewhere.
I suspect many HN commenters would be surprised to learn just how much the general public are on the side of these activists, condoning if not outright applauding their actions.
Companies at this scale only speak existential threat. If you can't pose one, they don't even know you exist. I question whether this made enough of a dent to be noticed, but it's a start.
> There’s an acute water shortage in The Netherlands right now. When I open BlueSky, everyone is talking about water being increasingly wasted on cooling data centres. And for what? To generate more AI shit.
Ah, the water-use BS again. In Europe, other than in the US, water use for data centers is strictly regulated. You cannot just do open-loop cooling and use a tap-water -> chiller -> sewer line. Things have to be closed-loop so there is no water consumption beyond the initial filling. The only thing you could get away with is to mist your outdoor units on the one or two hottest days per year. But even that is getting more and more restricted.
the problem with closed-loop is that you always have a system to discharge to sewer in case of emergency. And guess what? It's cheaper to do it regularly to save on electricity. So it's becoming a regular practice to build closed-loop systems to bypass opposition and have a de-facto open-loop. Never trust tech oligarchs.
I hate all this weird activist stuff. It's pointless. Someone just pays for it and the problem is fixed.
If you want to sabotage their hyperscale data centre construction, you probably should do it from the inside. Get the skills, get a job, get to the top and do a fucking terrible job of it like MSFT's C-suite.
> In recent years, people from Extinction Rebellion Netherlands have focused heavily on large scale disruptive action of ‘business as usual’.
Everyone talking about how stupid and ineffective this is. The whole point is to interrupt business as usual to draw attention to the stupidity of our continued head in the sand path. The damage (or lack thereof) is largely irrelevant. The fact a regular person is risking jail to try and stop business as usual is the entire point. It starts with one person.
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[ 0.22 ms ] story [ 43.2 ms ] threadI don't disagree we shouldn't be expanding power consumption unless we've moved the vast majority (>90%) of the load off fossil fuels, but this certainly didn't help anything.
Math is not theirs forte!
Yes, by changing the incentives to align with their desires.
I guarantee if a politician had a serious chance of introducing something like this that record breaking amounts of money would be poured into even a primary election these days to stop them.
lol this is not "worker opposition", these are the antics of over educated downwardly mobile elites.
Ah, the water-use BS again. In Europe, other than in the US, water use for data centers is strictly regulated. You cannot just do open-loop cooling and use a tap-water -> chiller -> sewer line. Things have to be closed-loop so there is no water consumption beyond the initial filling. The only thing you could get away with is to mist your outdoor units on the one or two hottest days per year. But even that is getting more and more restricted.
If you want to sabotage their hyperscale data centre construction, you probably should do it from the inside. Get the skills, get a job, get to the top and do a fucking terrible job of it like MSFT's C-suite.
Everyone talking about how stupid and ineffective this is. The whole point is to interrupt business as usual to draw attention to the stupidity of our continued head in the sand path. The damage (or lack thereof) is largely irrelevant. The fact a regular person is risking jail to try and stop business as usual is the entire point. It starts with one person.