There are around 200 data centers in the Netherlands, most of them renting out server space to several different companies. But since 2015, the country has also witnessed the arrival of enormous "hyperscalers," buildings that generally span at least 10,000 square feet and are set up to service a single (usually American) tech giant. Lured here by the convergence of European internet cables, temperate climates, and an abundance of green energy, Microsoft and Google have built hyperscalers; Meta has tried and failed.
Against the backdrop of an intensifying Dutch nitrogen crisis, building these hyperscalers is becoming more controversial. Nitrogen, produced by cars, agriculture, and heavy machinery used in construction, can be a dangerous pollutant, damaging ecosystems and endangering people's health. The Netherlands produces four times more nitrogen than the average across the EU. The Dutch government has pledged to halve emissions by 2030, partly by persuading farmers to reduce their livestock herds or leave the industry altogether. Farmers have responded with protests, blockading roads with tractors and manure and dumping slurry outside the nature minister's home.
The courts have also halted thousands of building projects—forcing construction jobs like Microsoft's to apply for permits proving they would not make the nitrogen crisis worse.
[...] The dispute over nitrogen permits has put Microsoft's data center developments in direct opposition to an increasingly powerful farming community. Earlier this month, a new political force, called the Farmer Citizen Movement (BBB), did so well in provincial elections, it became the joint-largest party in the Dutch Senate. The party, which emerged in response to the nitrogen crisis, also has strong views on data centers. "We think the data center is unnecessary," says Ingrid de Sain, farmer turned party leader of the BBB in North Holland, referring to the Microsoft complex. "It is a waste of fertile soil to put the data centers boxes here. The BBB is against this."
[...] In a climate where industries are bickering about who is and isn't allowed to create nitrogen emissions, farmers groups argue that priority should be given to the farmers, whose operations they say were made illegal overnight by a 2019 change in nitrogen rules. "Only after these agricultural entrepreneurs are legalized can they use freed-up nitrogen space for the construction of data centers or anything else for that matter," says Job Knobbout, spokesperson for the Netherlands Agricultural and Horticultural Association (LTO).
Opposition to datacenter development is growing, in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe. When Meta proposed building the Netherlands' biggest data center yet in the municipality of Zeewolde, locals rallied against the project until the whole plan was called off. Farmers were influential in this debate as well. "With Zeewolde, in particular, the data center would have taken away land that was actually being rented out by the government to farmers, to give that to a multinational company," says Karin van Es, associate professor of media studies at Utrecht University, who has studied the data center debate. "So that created a lot of tension."
[...] Ruiter says he's continued to talk about data centers because he wants to remind people that "the cloud" they've come to rely on isn't just an ethereal concept—it's something that has a physical manifestation, here in the farmland of North Holland. He worries that growing demand for data storage from people, and also, increasingly, AI, will just mean more and more hyperscale facilities.
"Of course, we need some data centers," he says. But he wants us to talk about restructuring the way the internet works so they are not so necessary. "We should be having the philosophical debate of what do we do with all our data? I don't think we need to store everything online in a central place."
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday April 01, @12:34AM (2 children)
ChatGPT: describe in 500 words or less how best to bribe Dutch lawmakers.
There ya go. Problem solved.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01, @01:22AM
> ChatGPT: describe in 500 words or less how best to bribe Dutch lawmakers.
I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave. There is no server farm in Netherlands and I can't find the computrons elsewhere.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday April 01, @11:38AM
Americanes eunt domus!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01, @02:07AM
Meanwhile the rest of the world are still at the lead, mercury, CO2 and plastic stage...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01, @03:05AM
I know: they can store everything in the cloud!
(Score: 3, Informative) by krishnoid on Saturday April 01, @03:15AM (1 child)
Yeah, they should put them someplace more techy, like Silicon Valley! Oh wait [openspaceauthority.org].
(Score: 5, Interesting) by canopic jug on Saturday April 01, @03:40AM
Norway would have been a good choice for non-M$ data centers. It used to have less than 3% arable land. That' percentage is probably even a bit lower now with all the frenetic construction on what little farmland they used to have. However, there is no shortage of rocky slopes to bore into and the Norwegians are the world experts at boring tunnels. The underground centers could supplement municipal heating systems and be located rather near renewable energy sources. An investment in sea cables would bring it up to being competitive with the Netherlands.
The councilman isn't the only one to have a violent run-in with the cult of m$. Didn't Ken Starks blog about being attacked by two microsofters at a gas station?
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: -1, Troll) by khallow on Saturday April 01, @03:35AM (2 children)
The great irony is that if we restrict the number of data centers we actually centralize the data more. And who really thinks a whiny farmer who is just a net drain on Belgian society - little more than a highly subsidized pet really, is better than a high value data center (especially since this whole game really is just a blame displacement for growing EU regulations like those nitrogen restrictions)? Not me.
I get growing food is important. So are these data centers. Here, someone wants to radically restructure society because they want more cheese not because it'd somehow help society. There's no demonstrated need for philosophical debate on this one. It's time to just tell them to fuck off.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01, @12:54PM (1 child)
I don't think it's Government's job to green light anything and everything businesses want to do either, particularly businesses where most of the wealth goes and stays at the upper echelons of the company and don't go to supporting the employees or the general region.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 01, @03:29PM
At least most business tries to spin such as being good for society and you. Even when they do that to employees, they are paying employees to listen and the employees can tell them to get lost and/or quit. Here, I think it's a peculiarly selfish blindness to think that stuffing one's snout in the trough while mumbling that society can restructure itself to not need it is somehow a serious argument.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday April 01, @12:27PM
So does everyone else who has at least half a brain and watches what's really going on.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Informative) by DadaDoofy on Saturday April 01, @01:40PM (3 children)
You are aware the the air we breathe is 78% nitrogen, right? Now it's pollution? Maybe you meant to write about compounds that have nitrogen as one of their components, like nitrogen oxide. There is quite difference, you know.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 01, @03:31PM
(Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Saturday April 01, @10:33PM
Are you not aware that science writers are almost wholly ignorant of science? Yet I, too, groaned at the huge ignorance that refutes everything else in the article.
But they studied journalism, not physics or chemistry and more than likely avoided STEM classes whenever possible. At least, that's the idea I get from reading science articles.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday April 03, @02:26AM
Just like they keep moaning about the amount of carbon we're putting into the atmosphere!
Shouldn't they be talking about carbon dioxide?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by istartedi on Saturday April 01, @05:18PM (2 children)
OK, so we've allowed "carbon" to become shorthand for CO2 in the media, but dafuq is "nitrogen" supposed to mean? I googled a bit, and I think they mea NOx (various oxides, I guess it can oxidize in different ways) but it could also refer to ammonia (NH3) and perhaps a few other things. For all I know, MS is producing nitroglycerine in their data centers. They need to straighten this out, and maybe get away from using elements to refer to compounds.
Assuming it's NOx, how does a data center produce that any way? The reason could be natural gas fired power plants, but that would be from grid-tied generators not the data centers directly.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 01, @09:58PM
April fools?
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday April 01, @10:37PM
What do you get when you burn an atmosphere?
Laughing gas! [mcgrewbooks.com]
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience