Datacentres drive up big tech's carbon emissions to a third of those of France

bamboozled

Man, we are cooked, literally

garganzol

For a context: France relies heavily on automotive transport, plus it's a home to enormous agricultural sector, tractors are literally everywhere in the country during the summer. To a certain degree, structurally it resembles USA a lot.

defrost

In related current news: Irish datacenters now guzzle 23% of the country's electricity https://www.theregister.com/on-prem/2026/07/11/irish-datacen... The latest figures from Ireland's Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that giant server farms now account for nearly a quarter of the country's metered electricity consumption. Their share rose to 23 percent in 2025 after passing 20 percent in 2023 and 14 percent in 2021 – up from just 5 percent way back in 2015. Luckily this will all be offset by the pot of gold at the end of the AI rainbow.

Muromec

But... Datacenters don't burn anything, right? Powerplants do and we try to switch all the transport and heating and whatever to be electric. So the answer is to build the damb nuclear power and a lot of it and price CO2 emissions at the actual cost of sucking the thing back out if the atmosphere

cold_pizz4

We don't really need the French on the other hand, how could we live without AI?

ChrisArchitect

Related: Microsoft latest report shows 25% emissions raised due to AI data centers https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48870229

spicyusername

Pretty small if you consider the value they provide, honestly. And they'll ride the transition to green energy for "free".

amazingamazing

legality of the datacenters aside, I wonder why countries don't at least demand that they're totally carbon neutral or free. it's possible today. it's not like it's sci-fi.

altern8

Not to worry. There are laws in the EU that will save the planet, like drinking from soggy paper straws instead of normal ones and requiring caps stay attached in plastic bottles. And just to make sure, at least in Poland they now charge you $0.10 if you buy anything plastic until you bring it back to the grocery store empty. We are safe.

mike_hock

It literally has only downsides except some convenience for people who don't want to think and don't want to work.