There was a murder that went totally unreported last week… Eamon Ryan killed irony stone dead.
On the very same day the Green Party leader warned the public to cut down on their daily use of power he allowed a data centre to pump nearly half-a-million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Our Environment Minister could also be accused of strangling satire as well as when he has got his organic cotton drawers in a twist about cutting a few sods of turf while he was ignoring the fact that corporate data centres will soon be using nearly a third of the nation’s electricity supply.
Read More: Ryan defends turf ban plans as Government TDs accused of 'political cowardice'
Then again, when it comes to saving energy, like taxes, such matters are just for the little people.
Last Friday Eamon Ryan was preaching to us about a range of actions we can take to save energy and money, while reducing national energy use.
At almost the exact same time An Bord Pleanala was granting planning permission to Amazon for yet another data centre which will use as much electricity as a major Irish town.
Amazon already operates a data centre at a business park in Co Meath and yet another one is planned for the near future. When that is completed the combined electricity use will be 144 megawatts.
To give this rather abstract fact some perspective let’s just say that’s enough to power most of Co Kilkenny – and Eamon Ryan is worrying about a few sods of turf.
To add to the farce, with warnings of fuel rationing by the end of the year it has also emerged that there is planning permission at least eight more centres over the next seven years that will use more energy than 24 million homes.
When you consider that there’s little more than two million homes in Ireland you begin to understand why Mr Ryan should be performing with a painted face in a circus rather than sitting at the cabinet table.
He is not alone – on Wednesday evening Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Greens voted down a Sinn Fein motion to stop the ban on turf.
So it’s OK for the company belonging to the second richest man on earth to make more billions from pumping even more billions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere but it will soon be illegal for your granny to burn turf in her fireplace.
That’s why I’m advising satirical websites like Waterford Whispers and Dr Harold News to pack it in because Eamon Ryan has unintentionally made them redundant.
How can they parody a man who by his own actions has placed himself beyond satire? At the planning hearing for the latest Amazon data centre it was revealed that the cumulative amount of CO2 produced by the three phases of the facilities at the site will amount to 473,040 tonnes a year.
While maths wouldn’t be my strong point I reckon there’s around 25 small bags of turf to the tonne so that’s 11,826,000 bags of the black stuff.
It is almost beyond belief that the likes of Eamon Ryan is urging the public to limit the amount of showers they take and to turn down the water temperature when the data centres can use huge amounts of power.
If that wasn’t bad enough these data centres use up to half a million litres of water a day for cooling.
The reality is that to provide these call centres with electricity more fossil fuel power stations will be needed as renewable sources will simply not be able to keep up with demand.
Figures show that there are 70 data centres in operation using 900 megawatts and there are a further eight under consideration, expected to use an additional 250 megawatts.
At present these data centres consume around 11% of the country’s electricity and that’s projected to grow to 31% in five years time.
So there you have it, the public is expected to save power and pay for what is among the most expensive electricity and gas in Europe while the likes of Amazon get huge tax breaks for using more power than some Irish cities.
So the hypocrites in Leinster House shouldn’t be surprised if the public continue to use turf and tell them to sod off when they pontificate about climate change.
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