Apple Scraps $1 Billion Irish Data Center Over Planning Delays

DooKey

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Ireland is losing out big time because they have delayed the construction of a $1B data center that Apple was wanting to establish in the country. According to Apple, the project has been stalled for three years and now they have to move on. Apparently the delays were caused by two individuals that kept appealing the planning. I hope all of their neighbors pay them a visit to congratulate them on their success. Who needs $1B spent in their community or the jobs that go with them? Hopefully this will result in additional construction in our country.


Apple announced plans in February 2015 to build the facility in the rural western town of Athenry to take advantage of green energy sources nearby, but a series of planning appeals, chiefly from two individuals, delayed its approval.
 
LOL.. the town looks like it might.. have 1 stop light or stop sign.. but not much more. would think finding skilled staff in such a remote area would be an issue.
 
Hopefully this will result in additional construction in our country.

It won't. They will find another foreign country to build it in, where they will be able to "hide" most of their profits. The more then money stays in the US, the more taxes that will be levy'ed against it.
 
Huh. I know one of them. Not the sort of person who would have pushed something that far without a) local support, and b) an actual objection that went beyond NIMBY.

Edit to add a quote from a different article (https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ire...e-says-power-demands-underestimated-1.3322548) :
Daly, a Pennsylvania native who does much of his consultancy work in the US, says he cares very much about Athenry, and Ireland, and about sustainable planning which is “not just jargon”. He says he has no objection to data centres per se, once they are restricted to zoned sites near towns and cities, with employment benefits, and once the high energy use is factored in. He has also objected to the Amazon data centre in Dublin.

The power demands of data centres have not been sufficiently considered, he believes, at a time when Ireland does not have the level of surplus renewable energy which Denmark has to offer. Eirgrid has forecast that if all the data centres IDA has planned for are actually built, it could account for 75 per cent of new energy demand by 2030, and the grid will have to be upgraded substantially.

The Bord Pleanála inspector handling the Apple appeal had agreed with Mr Daly’s argument that it could not clearly be shown how Apple’s power demand would be met from “100 per cent” renewable sources, he says.

“Yet the board’s approval did not require the multinational to show how it would offset the project with a wind farm, or the waste-heat recovery system it was required to built in Denmark,”he says.

The IDA had a 97-hectare site in Athenry which could have accommodated the Apple plan – amounting to eight data halls in all, he maintains. The waste heat recovery could have been used to heat the two secondary schools, hotel and perhaps “up to half the town”, he says. Apple had committed to this form of energy use in Denmark.
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So it looks like the Athenry project did not have the same actual renewable commitments as the Denmark project. I could see being somewhat upset with my local zoning commission/planning authority if they didn't wring those details out of the project stakeholders.
 
Huh. I know one of them. Not the sort of person who would have pushed something that far without a) local support, and b) an actual objection that went beyond NIMBY.

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looks like the whole town wanted it.
 
Good, bring that money back to the US. You got your tax break.

That money being spent was from EU sales, "bring that money back" would result in it being taxed again, and is best spent in the region it was generated in.
 
LOL.. the town looks like it might.. have 1 stop light or stop sign.. but not much more. would think finding skilled staff in such a remote area would be an issue.

No, it's not. They usually bring people from out of town or they live in the next big town over and commute. I live in a rinky dink small town and we have a dozen Amazon data centers. It's becoming pretty good business so the local community college (45 miles away) started a data center tech program. Skilled staff are usually brought in at first until a good local talent pool is established. It's not that bad. At least in my local area. Which is great, because now I have other people to talk to about computer shit.

It brings construction jobs, data center jobs, HVAC, janitors... taxes for the data center. It also comes with breaks from the electric company that are passed onto residentials (granted, Amazon built a LOT more than they initially intended to, requiring a bit of upgrades in the area).
 
looks like the whole town wanted it.
Hell I could be wrong, I'm not on the ground over there. Just seems out of character for one of them to be a sole objector (or one of only two) and take it to that level.

Looks like Athenry is about 4,000 people. From what I could find, unconfirmed counts indicate the major rally in support of the project number about 2,000 people and a protest group of about 1,200 showed up. So 80% of the town was involved, more or less (on the assumption the numbers are anywhere remotely accurate). Looks like aside from the two most likely reference by the OP, there was a major environmental protest spearheaded by a Brian McDonagh on the grounds that it was violating some forestry thing.
 
So green fascists under the false pretense of "the environment" ruin a tax base for an entire country by burying in gubment red tape. The weapon of all the left against business. They will then be the first people to vote for a living wage which actually be code for robbing working people to pay for their adult responsibilities. This is why Europe is a joke.
 
LOL.. the town looks like it might.. have 1 stop light or stop sign.. but not much more. would think finding skilled staff in such a remote area would be an issue.

How many people do you need to run a data center? Keep in mind they have many, and everything is installed by contractors and setup remotely. In theory you just need a security staff.
 
How many people do you need to run a data center? Keep in mind they have many, and everything is installed by contractors and setup remotely. In theory you just need a security staff.
Depends. For example, Boeing has a full staff in Quincy Washington that is about 50 people in it managing the servers which there are many various servers supporting different operations throughout their company.
 
Depends. For example, Boeing has a full staff in Quincy Washington that is about 50 people in it managing the servers which there are many various servers supporting different operations throughout their company.

Well they are operating in 2005.
 
And how did you come to that conclusion?

I work in the industry.

Friends work in the industry.


Trust me, that is not a very efficient way of doing things. If you are still "managing" servers... yikes
 
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Okay that's great.

I used to work at Boeing and did the datacenter modernization back in 2013 which that datacenter is brand new. 2005 is their datacenter in Bellevue Washington at 14 cents per kilo where they had over 90% physical servers for airplane operations and they converted that.... to 90+% virtual servers while the remaining 5-10% had to be physical. Why? Because of legacy aircrafts like the 737, 747, 767, and 777. Their staff is to support more specialized operations on a miniscule level. Boeing isn't in the hosting business.
 
It is kind of funny, as it is, essentially, an American that objects to this. Another gem is the group "Athenry Bring Back Apple". Yes, the group's name is ABBA :)
And a good occasion to bring ABBA up, as they are former winners of the Eurovision song contest, whose 2nd Semifinal for this year starts in a few minutes (with a few Americans present as I understand it - at least Will Ferrel was there on the 1st semifinal).
 
It is kind of funny, as it is, essentially, an American that objects to this. Another gem is the group "Athenry Bring Back Apple". Yes, the group's name is ABBA :)
And a good occasion to bring ABBA up, as they are former winners of the Eurovision song contest, whose 2nd Semifinal for this year starts in a few minutes (with a few Americans present as I understand it - at least Will Ferrel was there on the 1st semifinal).


Another fun fact about ABBA-- If it weren't for titties, ABBA probably would have been been.
 
This just proves the power bureaucracy can hold, 1 person with a grudge and the knowledge of the paperwork can be a dangerous opponent.
 
This just proves the power bureaucracy can hold, 1 person with a grudge and the knowledge of the paperwork can be a dangerous opponent.


certain groups here in the US use it very well. They will use such tactics to stall new projects, which cause construction costs to go WAY up. Then said groups will turn around and use the new sky high costs as "proof" that such projects are not economically viable. leaving out the caveat that they themselves have caused such inflated costs. though they also not be the EXACT same group..up front

LOL
 
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certain groups here in the US use it very well. They will use such tactics to stall new projects, which cause construction costs to go WAY up. Then said groups will turn around and use the new sky high costs as "proof" that such projects are not economically viable. leaving out the caveat that they themselves have caused such inflated costs. though they also not be the EXACT same group..up front

LOL
Canada too. The pen is the mightiest tool!
 
certain groups here in the US use it very well. They will use such tactics to stall new projects, which cause construction costs to go WAY up. Then said groups will turn around and use the new sky high costs as "proof" that such projects are not economically viable. leaving out the caveat that they themselves have caused such inflated costs. though they also not be the EXACT same group..up front

LOL
Brown did it with Sierra Club so he could enrich himself from fossil fuels. He exploited SC to shut down nuclear energy in California.
 
LOL.. the town looks like it might.. have 1 stop light or stop sign.. but not much more. would think finding skilled staff in such a remote area would be an issue.

Nothing is remote in Ireland, you can see 75% of the country in a week. I imagine if it's anywhere near Dublin that isn't an issue. Also the Irish are a highly skilled workforce to begin with.

Also, one of the best places to go on vacation, particularly if you are into stargazing. Best dark sky sites in the northern hemisphere on the southwest coast.
 
LOL.. the town looks like it might.. have 1 stop light or stop sign.. but not much more. would think finding skilled staff in such a remote area would be an issue.


Truly clueless.
 
So green fascists under the false pretense of "the environment" ruin a tax base for an entire country by burying in gubment red tape. The weapon of all the left against business. They will then be the first people to vote for a living wage which actually be code for robbing working people to pay for their adult responsibilities. This is why Europe is a joke.

FFS, not this "fascist" and "the left" nonsense again. Believe it or not, these boards are NOT improved by the constant polititroll threadcraps, nor is the definition of fascist "someone with whom I disagree." :facepalm:
 
LOL @ the idea that maybe this will bring the planned datacenter to the US. Uhhhh no. First, taxes. Second, uneducated public (people with STEM degrees available for any position are really hard to find here now). The US is no longer a competitive place to host major data centers, so the ones we have are for latency and international bandwidth constraints alone, mostly. Or were built before recent times, before the "cloud" revolution (I really hate that term, it means nothing, it's a new marketing buzzword for "service on the internet," which all things on the internet already are... so it's a really just a new word for the Internet meant to "frighten and confuse" the non-tech savvy!).
 
Okay that's great.

I used to work at Boeing and did the datacenter modernization back in 2013 which that datacenter is brand new. 2005 is their datacenter in Bellevue Washington at 14 cents per kilo where they had over 90% physical servers for airplane operations and they converted that.... to 90+% virtual servers while the remaining 5-10% had to be physical. Why? Because of legacy aircrafts like the 737, 747, 767, and 777. Their staff is to support more specialized operations on a miniscule level. Boeing isn't in the hosting business.

2013 is ancient.

Cloud stuff is a lot different. It will be predesigned, the whole thing, and not change. They won’t replace a server, will replace 10,000. Trust me, the ops team there is minuscule.
 
2013 is ancient.

Cloud stuff is a lot different. It will be predesigned, the whole thing, and not change. They won’t replace a server, will replace 10,000. Trust me, the ops team there is minuscule.
You're still assuming things. This is the last time I'll respond to you because you want to project what you think other people are doing.
 
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