Northern Ireland only has a few small uncontroversial data
centres, but in other parts of Britain there are giant data centres that are
attracting strong opposition.
The complaints are getting more frequent and more critical –
of constant noise, rising utility bills, massive consumption of electricity and
water, and air pollution.
But few people are joining the dots here. It seems to have
escaped most people’s attention that everything we do on the internet uses data
centres, so we actually need more and more of them, and if local resistance
makes building them difficult or even impossible we have a major problem.
Most of us use smart phones. Most of us use a variety of
online services. Most of us use the internet heavily. What would happen if construction
of data centres couldn’t keep up with demand?
It would be impossible to limit people’s use of the internet,
as we’re now so highly dependent on it.
But I haven’t seen any journalist considering what would
happen if the supply of data centres was lagging behind the volume of internet
use. It’s assumed that data centres will keep multiplying and multiplying as
needed. Which is a big assumption.
Pic: A data centre in the Netherlands
I need my data! Not really, but life would be very different without it.
ReplyDeleteLinda