Let's talk about data centres a bit more. I had an interesting discussion with Hannah Daly in another thread. I don't agree with her, but I respect her opinion.
We're both advocating for exactly the same thing as far as I can see - remove fossil fuels from the system and transition to clean renewable energy so we can all breathe cleaner air and slow global warming.
We disagree on the mechanism to achieve that goal.
One side of the house is advocating for an immediate reduction in fossil fuels in order to meet climate targets. In some areas, that's exactly what we need. But data centres are a bit different. Data centres, EVs and heat pumps are perfect flexible loads - meaning that you can interrupt them for short periods of time without any 'operational' impact, or move them off grid (in the case of data centres).
The problem with putting a lot of renewables on the electricity system, is that they're intermittent (obviously). So how do you run a grid on 100% clean energy for long periods of time, when your supply could disappear without warning as weather conditions change?
Battery storage is the long term solution, but it will take a while to build up enough capacity to run a whole country on batteries. We'll get there, but it's still expensive. What's the interim solution?
Loads of renewables on the system + "batteries that happen to have data centres connected to them, which makes them economic" + IoT infrastructure that can tell things to consume more power when there's a lot of renewables on the system, and less when conditions are tight (as well as fast acting "emergency response" services that click into action when there's an unexpected fault).
Data centres are a key part of that interim solution. "Batteries that have car parts connected to them" too.
It's a really difficult problem - lots of technology needs to get figured out to run a grid for long periods of time on wind + solar.
Ireland needs to make itself a centre of excellence for data centre technology and the grid infrastructure that goes with it. That will allocate resources to solving the intermittency problem directly. As someone who cares deeply about sustainability, my point is not to ignore climate targets, but to pair them with an aggressive technology build agenda that makes the targets achievable in practice.
The important thing is not which country can reduce emissions first, it's which country can build the technologies that make renewable energy CHEAPER and MORE RELIABLE than fossil fuels first - that will be the forcing function to transition the whole world to renewables, rapidly.
Note: I don't operate data centres, I'm not a politician, etc - I'm an engineer who cares deeply about sustainability, and I'm spending my time working on practical solutions to achieve that goal.