Data Centre expansion and LNG construction puts “climate targets impossibly out of reach.”
New Fortress Energy, the company behind the plans to build a Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal in Tarbert, has begun distributing leaflets in an attempt to build local support for the construction. The leaflet states “an LNG terminal in Ireland could largely replace gas imports from Britain which in turn would reduce Europe’s demand for gas from Russia” and that the construction of the LNG terminal would “address the increasing security of gas supply concerns and eliminate the risk of power outages due to gas shortages”
In response to the leaflet, People Before Profit spokesperson, Ruairí Fahy, stated “New Fortress Energy is using the war in Ukraine to push its own agenda while recent reports from Britain have shown that the gas network, which we’re connected to, is already saturated by the existing LNG capacity and can’t deliver any additional gas supply to Europe. The idea that we need this new infrastructure is driven not by the current energy needs or the desire of European countries to reduce their reliance on Russian gas but by the constant expansion of energy demands, most notably new data centres, with the largest data centre in Ireland planned for the site.“
Paul Deane, Research Fellow at University College Cork, who was quoted on the leaflet, has stated elsewhere that “Reducing energy demand by 10% has the same impact on CO2 emissions as doubling the capacity of wind energy - it’s politically unpopular but can have an immediate impact”
But reports from the CSO and Eirgrid have shown that data centres currently consume 14% of all electricity generated in Ireland with forecasts showing that data centres could consume nearly a third of all electricity by 2030. This increase is not due to reductions in other areas of the economy but an expansion in the generation capacity on the island and through electricity connectors with the continent.
Environment and Transport Minister Eamon Ryan in a recent interview with the Irish Examiner has stated that LNG is “something we have to look at” and that “one vision is to build the likes of an LNG terminal and a data centre and a power station beside it, and it is self-contained almost.” Local Green Party TD Brian Leddin in an event organised by UL Envirosoc in May stated “We’re completely opposed to the LNG plant.”
In response to recent statements by Green Party representatives, Ruairí said, “The Green Party is speaking out of both sides of their mouths on the Shannon LNG terminal, submitting objections for the positive media coverage while the minister speaks out simultaneously in support of the development. The idea that an LNG terminal, gas-powered generator and data centre hub is ‘self-contained’ is only true if you ignore the massive emissions it will generate placing our climate targets impossibly out of reach”
The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated that greenhouse-gas emissions “must peak before 2025 at the latest, and be reduced by 43 percent by 2030, to keep temperatures to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels”
In response to what we can do to meet these targets, Ruairí suggested, “We’ve got to listen to the scientists. We can’t keep expanding industries with high energy consumption at the expense of the planet. We need to start seriously asking the question of which data centre applications are socially useful and begin banning those that are harmful, surveillance used to increase the intensity of work at the expense of workers health, for example. We also need to look at reducing energy consumption to tackle climate change. This requires the implementation of free and frequent public transport along with its expansion to ensure rural and underserved areas so that these people aren’t left behind. Another extremely important measure is an accelerated rollout of state funded retrofits and to fix the current scheme that has poorer households paying for retrofits to the homes of richer people through the carbon tax.”
