This is pretty terrible:
"Key role for gas networks in powering data centres of the future"
Let's just look at the highlights:
(1/n)
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* Research suggests gas networks could accelerate the delivery of new facilities which are currently delayed into the 2030s, and beyond, by electricity network constraints
> In other words, more data centres will burn fossil fuel directly to generate electricity on site, rather than use renewables.
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* Increased use of green gases, such as hydrogen and biomethane, in gas networks could help decarbonise data centres
> Reality: currently, at most 70% of the UK gas network could take a mixture with 20% hydrogen, and there are hardly any facilities to create green hydrogen or methane. This is pure greenwashing.
(3/n)
* Co-locating gas-fired generation plants with carbon capture, waste heat recovery, and hydrogen electrolysis supports a circular economy
> More greenwash. Carbon capture remains unproven; electrolysis of hydrogen using electricity from burning fossil fuel is not reducing emissions at all. Heat recovery should be mandatory even for sites powered by renewables, it is not a positive of gas-fired generation.
(4/n)
(5/n) In short, all this does is delay the phasing out of the use of fossil fuels.
It's just a pathway I had not considered before and to my mind a truly evil one.
(6/n) What is also insidious, from a greenwash perspective, is that the carbon intensity of the UK electricity grid will keep on going down, as those gas-fired turbines used by the data centres are not part of the grid.
(7/n) heat recovery is starting to get touted as the panacea, but of course it only works in a climate where it is necessary to heat buildings for most of the year. Also, the waste heat of a gas-powered data centre is a lot less heat than just using that same gas to heat homes (*). So redirecting gas to data centres does not reduce emissions for heating, on the contrary.
(*) efficiency of gas to electricity * efficiency of heat exchange * efficiency of heat delivery network = small number
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