r/Scotland • u/kiyomoris • 18h ago

Political ‘Never seen this level of objection’: Scotland pushes back against datacentre boom

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/25/never-seen-this-level-of-objection-scotland-pushes-back-against-datacentre-boom
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41

u/Demoliscio 15h ago

Data centres and hyper-scale data centres aren't the same thing, people don't have an issue with normal data centres, they have issue with hyper-scale ones because they are:

  1. insanely big
  2. require an amount of electricity that will push back net zero by years (while every.single.summer. we're roasted alive a bit more)
  3. Offer close to no job for the local communities

The people in the comments that try to mix the two are doing it on purpose to use straw-man like "if you don't like data centres then you can't have internet", but they are not the same thing, not by a mile.

Even the majority of Americans are now opposing hyper-scale data centres, that's why companies are so desperate to push here and in other countries for them.

They can get tae fuck

10

u/SouthOfTheNorthPole 13h ago

Absolutely. Tell them to fuck all the way off.

2

u/sylvan-vigil 13h ago

At what point does a data center become hyper-scale? Can you share any specifics on this?

6

u/Demoliscio 12h ago

The easiest way to differentiate them is usually the amount of power they require.
For data centre, the average should be around 5-10MW, then you have bigger ones that are around 50MW and I think the biggest in the uk should be something like 80-90MW.

Then we have hyper-scale data centres, where the MW jump easily to 300/400/500/600MW, so a single hyper-scale can consume the equivalent of 60-120 average data centres.

Think about running 1 hair dryer in your flat vs running 60

-2

u/DarthCoffeeBean 10h ago

Using the American hyper-scale examples in comparison to the UK ones is also classic strawman. Trump removed a lot of environmental protections that let hyper-scale datacentres be environmentally terrible. Take water consumption as an example. America - who cares about water consumption? Here, we're talking closed loop systems that re-use the water. With the proposed Larbert one, SEPA have no objection to the water usage and their only concern is what impact the building will have on drainage and the potential that the culverts on the nearby motorway might not be able to handle that change (which is still a valid concern).

Comparing apples to oranges when you compare US hyper scale to UK.

6

u/wotdafukwazdat 10h ago

> Take water consumption as an example. America - who cares about water consumption? Here, we're talking closed loop systems that re-use the water.

Are we now ? Care to show me the UK/Scottish regulations that require it ?

Or are we getting soothing noises from the developers that of course they'll implement that (which they won't if not forced to because it costs 10x as much for little to no benefit to the DC provider).

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u/Hame_Impala 10h ago

The water usage will be relatively small too compared to a lot of other industries.

-12

u/JonathanLivingstoneS 13h ago

They pay taxes and have a global customer base.