undefined | Better HN

0 pointsretired2mo ago0 comments

For The Netherlands, construction work causes emissions. There are limits to these emissions. Building a data center means you can't simultaneously build a house anywhere nearby the construction site as that would cause the local emissions to go over the set limits.

Next to that there is net congestion. The energy grid is currently critical, if you add a data center that means you will not be able to connect 20 to 30 newly build homes to power. There are currently new homes that are waiting for a connection to the grid before people can live there.

Space. In the densest country of Europe (non-microstate), a hyper scale data center could have been a neighborhood.

Latest point, maybe not the strongest, is construction workers. While construction workers building a data center are different from construction workers building homes, it doesn't really help with the labor shortages in construction if electricians are all busy building data centers.

0 pointsretired2mo ago0 comments

Space. In the densest country of Europe (non-microstate), a hyper scale data center could have been a neighborhood.

0 comments

5 comments · 2 top-level

JuniperMesos2mo ago· 2 in thread

> For The Netherlands, construction work causes emissions. There are limits to these emissions. Building a data center means you can't simultaneously build a house anywhere nearby the construction site as that would cause the local emissions to go over the set limits.

This is an insane regulation, and I wonder if it was passed by NIMBYs whose actual goal is to prevent the construction of housing near them.

retiredOP2mo ago

I recently read an article that 8 cows needed to be moved 5 kilometers so they could build a bicycle path. The cows combined with the construction of the new bicycle path caused too much local emissions.

The municipality bought the emissions rights from the farmers that held those 8 cows and the farmers then had to move/remove/slaughter 8 cows.

Welcome to The Netherlands.

JuniperMesos2mo ago

This is the sort of thing that people are willing to elect politicians who deny the existence of global warming in order to avoid.

badc0ffee2mo ago· 1 in thread

Thanks for the perspective. It sounds like you'd run into the same issues (except for the electrical load) building any large industrial project, which does not bode well for your economy.

retiredOP2mo ago

Correct. At the moment the expansion of ASML is halted because of nearby farmers that create a negligible addition to the GDP.

If the Dutch government was a bit smarter, they would buy out the farmers and create a mega-campus for ASML, including housing for all those expats.

Edit: I stand corrected, last month ASML was granted permission to expand by 20.000 employees.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse