Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
The Northern Territory government is backing plans for a $40 billion data centre industry, with several ‘hyper-scale’ AI data centre campuses to be built on land around 30 kilometres from Darwin.
These data centres would be powered by 3 GW of electricity generation, which in turn would be powered by gas from the NT’s Betaloo Basin.
The plan puts the NT government at odds with the federal government, which has drafted rules that would force data centres to power their operations with new renewable energy sources.
The issue is expected to come to a head at a meeting of energy ministers this week, with the Queensland government publicly opposed to the renewable-only proposal, given a lack of modelling and clarity over how the plan would work.
Data centres are incompatible with renewable energy targets:
The debate comes as Australia is on the verge of a major boom in data centre investment.
The rebellion has spread from Queensland to the Northern Territory.
The economics driving this rebellion are simple – whoever breaks ranks with the federal green mandate gets to pull hundreds of billions of dollars of dollars of high tech investment, secure well paid jobs for university graduates, a construction industry boom, and a deluge of state tax revenue.
Whoever sticks with the Aussie federal government’s plan to try to force data centers to build renewables gets left in the dust.
Way back in his 2021, annual CEO letter, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, wrote: “No issue ranks higher than climate change.” It will reshape global capital flows, he said, and declared, “…anyone can see the impact of climate change in the natural disasters in California or Florida.”
Now though, never mind about global extinctions and flash floods. Fink just spoke at the Davos ski club for billionaires and declared that we need “trillions of dollars” of investment for AI. Data centres, he said, are rapidly expanding — one technology company he spoke to said that “its data centres currently use about 5 gigawatts, but by 2030 it expects to need 30 gigawatts.”
Glowing Neon Bank Building Outline, Abstract Background. Finance, Technology Concept.
Way back in his 2021, annual CEO letter, Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, wrote: “No issue ranks higher than climate change.” It will reshape global capital flows, he said, and declared, “…anyone can see the impact of climate change in the natural disasters in California or Florida.”
Now though, never mind about global extinctions and flash floods. Fink just spoke at the Davos ski club for billionaires and declared that we need “trillions of dollars” of investment for AI. Data centres, he said, are rapidly expanding — one technology company he spoke to said that “its data centres currently use about 5 gigawatts, but by 2030 it expects to need 30 gigawatts.”
But like a true banker, he doesn’t see a backflip, he sees only investment opportunities — the world is short of power he says. (He doesn’t say that this is in large part because BlackRock leaned on companies and countries all over the world to abandon fossil fuels.) Fink helped create the energy shortage that he now calls an investment opportunity. BlackRock is the largest asset manager in the world, controlling $10 trillion dollars in assets, or five times Australia’s GDP. When that much money talks, everyone listens.
Now Larry Fink throws wind and solar under the bus.
He’s matter of fact, with a straight face, almost like he never pushed intermittent generators:
Fink: “At the same time, this represents a huge investment opportunity. The world is going to be short of power. And to supply these data centres, you cannot rely solely on intermittent sources like wind and solar. You need dispatchable power, because these data centres cannot simply turn on and off.”
Larry Fink slides the bomb in after 45 mins 30 seconds:
Investing amid Global Fracture
This man probably did more than any single person to pump up the Great Renewables Bubble that peaked in 2022. He presumably has taken his profits long before this speech — leaving mums and dads and pension funds holding the bag with investments in unreliable, expensive generators.
Transcript of Larry Fink at the WEF:
“AI is fundamentally a large-capitalization business. At the moment, if you look at the S&P 500, the ten largest companies account for about 38% of the index. If AI develops the way many expect, and if you look at the scale of reinvestment these companies are already making, that share could rise to 50%. We may end up with an “S&P 10” and an “S&P 490.” That alone shows the power of what is coming.
To properly build out AI, we are talking about trillions of dollars of investment. Data centres today might consume around 200 megawatts, but new facilities are being planned at the scale of one gigawatt — that is the amount of power used by a city. One technology company I spoke with last week said that its data centres currently use about 5 gigawatts, but by 2030 it expects to need 30 gigawatts.
The amount of power required to run AI will have a huge impact on society. Where is that electricity going to come from? Are we going to take it from the existing grid?
What does this mean for energy prices for everyone else? These are major societal questions that we have not really addressed. Forget the uses of AI for a moment — just generating the power to run it requires enormous amounts of energy.
At the same time, this represents a huge investment opportunity. The world is going to be short of power. And to supply these data centres, you cannot rely solely on intermittent sources like wind and solar. You need dispatchable power, because these data centres cannot simply turn on and off.
Data centres planned for Scotland would require a “mindblowing” amount of energy that would be sufficient to power several trips in the famous time-travelling DeLorean from the Back To The Future films, campaigners have calculated.
Data centres planned for Scotland would require a “mindblowing” amount of energy that would be sufficient to power several trips in the famous time-travelling DeLorean from the Back To The Future films, campaigners have calculated.
In the hit movies, Doc Brown’s fictional time-travelling car required 1.21 gigawatts (GW) of energy to take Marty McFly, played by actor Michael J Fox, back to 1985 – with this more than the 1.19GW of power produced by the Torness nuclear power station in East Lothian.
Kat Jones, director of the countryside charity Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS), criticised the “ridiculous” amount energy needed by the “hyperscale” data centres.
APRS has calculated that data centres in the planning system and going though pre-application processes could require between 4.7 and 5.5 GW of power.
Today APRS and ERCS wrote to the Planning Minister Ivan McKee to express concern about the energy demands of data centres coming through Scotland’s planning system. They called for a pause on all planning applications until a more strategic approach can be made and strict environmental standards are defined for data centres. The full press release is below.
For release 12:01am Thursday 18th December 2025
An environmental charity has revealed that the energy demand from data centres currently in the Scottish planning system is between 4450 MW and 4950 MW, which is larger than the winter peak electricity demand for the whole of Scotland [1]. Information collected by Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS) from the planning portals of Scotland’s local authorities found 17 hyperscale data centers at various stages of the planning process [2] and many others at earlier stages. None have yet received a decision on whether or not they have planning permission.
This rush of applications is related to the exponential growth of AI and the processing power that it demands. UK Government and Scottish Government estimates give a figure of 10-30 MW for 2024 data centre capacity in Scotland. [5] Three quarters of the data centre electricity demand comes from planning applications from just one company.
Today, in a letter to the Scottish Government environmental charities Action to Protect Rural Scotland (APRS) and the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland (ERCS) call for an urgent response to the threat these data centres pose to Scotland’s energy security, energy prices and climate targets.
APRS and ERCS are calling on the Scottish Government to pause all applications to give time to examine the implications for Scotland’s energy grid, energy prices and net zero targets, as well as other impacts on the environment and on local communities.
“It’s hard to imagine another area of life where boasting about how much energy something uses would be a selling point.
“You don’t see washing machines, houses and TVs sold on the basis of how much energy they use – rather the reverse. Society has been trying to be as efficient on energy as possible to deal with the existential threat of climate breakdown, after all.”
I do find it extraordinary that an organisation set up to protect the Scottish countryside should prioritise Net Zero over the industrialisation of the Highlands by wind farms and pylons!
Kat Jones, of course, is welcome to give up computers and all the other trappings of modern life. But I suspect that she won’t.
And if these data centres are not built in Scotland, they will simply be built somewhere else.
There is a simple solution to all this. Build two or three clean burning, environmentally friendly CCGT plants.
As with Ireland, this is all a reminder that wind and solar power cannot run a modern economy.
In any sane world Slough and the Government would be celebrating the influx of these data centres, which bring well paid jobs and boost the local economy.
Slough has emerged as Britain’s fastest-growing pollution hotspot, with its surging data centre industry driving up greenhouse gas emissions.
The southern town’s concentration of more than 30 massive data centres has pushed up commercial emissions by 52pc since 2005 – making it the only place in the UK to see such a rapid rise in pollution.
Slough’s total emissions equate to five tonnes of CO2 for each of its citizens – far above the three tonnes per person seen in traditional industrial areas such as South Tyneside, the 3.7 tonnes recorded in Newcastle upon Tyne and the four tonnes recorded in Sunderland.
The figures come from the latest government data on the UK’s local and regional greenhouse gas statistics, which said Slough stood out from Britain’s other council authority areas.
“All but one of the UK’s 361 local authority areas have seen a reduction in commercial emissions since 2005,” said the report, covering emissions from 2005-2023.
The one authority that saw an increase is Slough, where commercial sector emissions increased by 52pc between 2005 and 2023. This increase may be because of the large number of data centres that have been built there.”
In any sane world Slough and the Government would be celebrating the influx of these data centres, which bring well paid jobs and boost the local economy. But not according to the wally who runs Slough Council:
Dexter Smith, Conservative leader of Slough Council, said the new figures were a bombshell because of the borough’s aim of becoming carbon-neutral by 2040, with ambitions to achieve this by 2030.
He said Slough’s hopes of improving life expectancy for its citizens – currently 10 years lower than in surrounding boroughs – lay in opening the way for more such high-tech developments.
“I would be devastated if the explanation for this data was down to Slough’s high concentration of data centres … We have 31 data centres with more on the way. Planning applications will have to comply with operating requirements that include stringent control of emissions and being carbon neutral,” he said.
What makes his utterly ludicrous statement even more hypocritical is that he, the Town Council and every inhabitant of Slough will still need and use these data centres wherever they are built.
Jonathan Leake who wrote this piece is little better, calling carbon dioxide “pollution”:
“making it the only place in the UK to see such a rapid rise in pollution”
Maybe someone ought to tell him that it is a natural gas, without which there would be no life on earth!
He also seems quite proud of the fact that:
“By contrast, the emissions from the entire North East of England – a much larger area – fell from 2.9m tonnes in 2005 to just 960,000 tonnes in 2023. It means emissions per person in the North East fell from 13.4 tonnes to just 3.1 tonnes – far lower than in Slough, and a direct consequence of the collapse of energy-intensive industries in the region”.
That’s the way, Jonathan – let’s shut down the whole UK economy to cut emissions!
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