BISSEN, Luxembourg — Daniel Hientgen unrolls a large construction plan and he doesn’t like what he sees.
The paper sketches out the options for Google’s scheme to build a €1.2 billion data center in Luxembourg’s bucolic countryside.
The government wants the investment to help diversify the Grand Duchy away from its reliance on the financial sector, but locals from the nearby town worry that the 34-hectare campus could burn through about 12 percent of the country’s electricity and use up scarce water, while providing only about 100 jobs.
“People were interested at first,” said Hientgen, the president of Pro Bissen, a local organization hoping to halt the project. “But now, they’re starting to increasingly realize that the data center will represent few jobs, barely any taxes, no scientific contribution — basically, only risks.”
The lack of enthusiasm greeting Google is mirrored across the Continent as concern grows about the environmental footprint of such information and communications technology (ICT) investments.
The European Commission weighed in on Wednesday, presenting its long-term tech strategy, which includes a push for data centers to become carbon-neutral by 2030.
“We need to press certain sectors where they can be better — one of those is data centers, which are major power consumers,” a senior Commission official said.
Power hungry
Until now, the bloc has relied on voluntary efforts to curb the ICT sector’s voracious energy appetite. There is a European code of conduct for data centers meant to help operators cut energy consumption, but the scheme covers fewer than 5 percent of data centers.
The incoming German presidency of the Council of the EU, which takes office on July 1, will also put the matter top of its agenda. “So basically the impact of the digital economy and especially of the data centers on the broader environment will be a hot topic,” Luxembourg Energy Minister Claude Turmes told POLITICO.
The American company purchased the land about 25 kilometers from Luxembourg’s capital two years ago, to build what could become the country’s biggest data center. It would join about two dozen other data farms.
Although Luxembourg is the EU’s wealthiest country per capita, Google says it is the right pick for its infrastructure because it is “at the heart of Europe, next to our current and future users,” and also because of its political stability and advanced telecoms and electricity networks.
Luxembourg, already the European headquarters of Amazon, has long been cozy with U.S. tech companies — perhaps even a bit too cozy, according to the European Commission, which in 2017 said the Grand Duchy gave illegal tax benefits to Amazon worth around €250 million. (The case is under appeal.)
In Bissen, Google faces a make-or-break communal vote in April, where local authorities will decide on whether the project can go forward. Google will then have to go through an environmental impact assessment and get government approval for the project.
The town of 3,200 is no stranger to foreign investors — both Goodyear, the U.S. tire company, and international steel manufacturing giant Arcelor-Mittal, have nearby plants.
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But so far Google hasn’t swayed the locals. The U.S. company did hold an open meeting for the town, leaving many people unhappy.
“The way Google is acting is not very usual in Luxembourg,” the town’s mayor, David Viaggi, said in a phone interview. “We’re used to companies [that] explain what they do when they come. Google is behaving the American way: They just show up and say they need a huge field.”
Viaggi, who is in contact with the U.S. company, is not entirely against the project, and said he could support it in April if his town gets something out of it — such as government financial support for new roads.
Local activists are angry about what they see as a lack of information and also worry about the environmental impact.
“We are alarmed by the lack of transparency and it makes it difficult to trust Google,” said Pro Bissen’s Hientgen. “[Politicians] say it will put us on the digital map. But we already have Amazon and Skype.”
Google explained that the lack of information is because the data center is not yet fully designed, so it can’t precisely assess water and electricity consumption, said Fabien Vieau, Google’s regional director for data center energy and location strategy who’s overseeing the project.
The country’s government is trying to balance local concerns with broader economic goals.
“It’s a huge industrial project and I understand that citizens have questions, I understand that the local authority has questions,” Turmes said in an interview in his office. “On the other hand, probably the same citizens are using smartphones and maybe some of them are on Netflix.”
Luxembourg’s then-Deputy Prime Minister Etienne Schneider announced the project in 2016 after meeting Google’s co-founder Larry Page. Schneider, who resigned in early February, declined a request for an interview. Prime Minister Xavier Bettel’s office did not reply to a request for comment.
Luxembourg isn’t the only place taking a harder look at such investments. Currently, information technology accounts for between 5 percent and 9 percent of total world electricity consumption, but that may rise to 20 by 2030, according to consultancy firm Enerdata.
That energy drain poses problems for the country’s climate goals. Luxembourg last year boosted its 2030 emissions reduction target from 40 percent to 55 percent, and wants to boost renewables to 25 percent of energy supply by 2030. But it is already struggling to meet its 11 percent renewables target for the end of this year. It’s also not on track to hit its 2020 target of cutting emissions by 20 percent compared to 2005 levels.
The country, which has few natural resources of its own, imports all of its oil and gas, as well as about 95 percent of its electricity.
That makes data centers like the one being planned by Google a key issue for the country’s energy policy.
“It’s a question to all energy ministers in Europe: what kind of regulation do we need to make sure that the data centers where the services stand are as energy efficient as possible?” said Turmes.
Big Tech vs Green Deal
There are already hundreds of data centers around the EU. Google has digital infrastructure in Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark and is planning to invest more.
Turmes said he’s in talks with counterparts in Denmark and Ireland, both of which are at risk of missing their 2020 climate targets “because of too many inefficient data centers.”
“In a digital economy, you need data centers,” the minister said. “And these data centers have to be built with the best possible efficiency otherwise they go against the environment and especially [against tackling] climate change.”
In Ireland, electricity demand is expected to increase by 50 percent by 2030 — 30 percent of that rise is due to the country’s data centers, according to Irish electric power transmission operator Eirgrid. There are about 50 data centers in Ireland, including those of Google, Facebook and Microsoft. In 2018, Apple decided not to go forward with plans to build a data center in rural Ireland because of local opposition.
Meanwhile in Bissen, Hientgen said locals are not anti-tech fanatics.
“I know mega data centers are necessary,” he said. “But they should be installed where cooling is easier, next to rivers, the sea or in Nordic countries, not on top of a hill — especially if they are of this size.”
Paola Tamma contributed reporting.
This article has been updated with Wednesday’s Commission presentation of its technology strategy.
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