A former chemical plant in North Wales, UK, could be turned into a data center under plans put forward by AI infrastructure firm Carbon3.ai.
The data center would be built on the site of the former Octel factory at Amlwch Port, located on the island of Anglesey, North Wales.
Carbon3.ai has submitted a planning application to Anglesey County Council, requesting a change of use for the site to enable the data center to be built.
In its application, the company said it would adapt and “reuse existing buildings within the industrial complex, enabling the delivery of a modern, energy-efficient AI center that will provide secure, sustainable and high-capacity computing infrastructure in support of the UK’s digital and AI sectors.”
It’s hard to argue that a datacenter has more environmental impact than a chemical plant, but I look forward to reading the comments that try.
This looks like this is part of the UK’s Digital Sovereignty plans, so they have their companies data on their land and legal jurisdiction
Do you have any reason to believe the opposite?
That a datacenter causes less environmental impact than a chemical plant? I have a lot of reasons to believe that.
The primary one being that the primary waste product for datacenters is water vapor while this chemical plant used extracted bromine from seawater using chlorine oxidation and produced a huge amount of chemical waste including water contaminated by chlorine and bromine.
In a disaster, a damaged datacenter will turn off while a damaged chemical plant will leak toxic and deadly chemicals into the local area.
The air quality in Tennessee would disagree with you about datacenter waste products…
Well, tell it that if it could post here it could explain its position.
Hi, I’m smog, from down in good ol’ Memphis TN. If like to share with you some exciting developments!
First, Elon was gracious enough to put my data center in the backyards of black people. You know, because white people don’t want their air and water to get wrecked nor their power bills to shoot up exponentially because we’re stealing it all up. It just makes good business sense to target people who are already suffering.
Want me to do you one even more funny? The lack of power is a real problem because these centers are so unbelievably insatiable. But did Musk get upset? No! He’s just did what any brilliant rich person would do! He installed the most incredible giant gas turbines without consulting anyone first!
And water? Not a problem! Modern models only take hundreds of thousands of gallons to train and operate. Good thing there aren’t any scarcity issues!
Yup, I’m here all warm and cozy raising an entire city district’s (did I mention minorities?!) smog levels by about 50%! And, man, the sublime noise pollution!
There is literally no one to stop is because any problems encountered can be alleviated immediately by decisions that poison the locals!
Ok, so let’s go over this.
The topic is this datacenter’s waste products vs chemical plant waste products.
Yeah, it sounds like Elon Musk is an asshole who doesn’t make plans and just throws shit up wherever, regardless of the ability of the location to support it. Unless he’s a datacenter that is also not relevent.
The datacenter in the OP is in North Wales and not owned by Elon Musck. It is connected to grid power, not gas turbines. In North Wales, the energy production infrastructure is 50% renewables.
If you notice water at the upper right of the picture, that is the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic Ocean is not currently experiencing water scarcity.
You also did not explain how any of those locations would be improved by replacing the datacenter with a chemical plant… which is the entire proposition that this conversation was based on.
You asked how I felt and now you disregard my feelings?
I did not ask how you, or anyone else were feeling. Where did you get that idea?
Do you need emotional validation from strangers on the Internet?
I am all for the UK’s Digital Sovereignty. But a chemical plant!?