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.
(2/n)
* 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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(8/n) The heat reuse situation is better for data centres powered by the grid as the proportion of renewables in the UK is already high and growing, but it would still be better to use the electricity to power heat pumps to heat the homes than to power data centres. And you can't use waste heat to cool buildings.
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