Hard drive of the world? The development of giant data centres in the Netherlands.

12

October

2020

5/5 (2)

After reading the blog ‘Can the Cloud save the environment?’, of fellow BIM student Joram van Rijn, I remembered an interesting news item which I saw a few months ago about the development of data centres in the Netherlands that run on renewable energy. Hence, I made a comment about this and shared my thoughts.

By chance, yesterday evening, the item about the development of giant data centres in the Netherlands using renewable energy was on the news again. In the Wieringermeer, a municipality and polder in the province of North Holland, data centres from Google and Microsoft have been built which fully run on renewable wind energy from the Prinses Ariane Windpark located nearby. For Google and Microsoft, locating data centres in the Netherlands is attractive as they can use renewable energy for making the company ‘greener’. In addition, using the Netherlands as their headquarters provides certain tax advantages.

At first glance, this seems like a very positive development. After all, using renewable energy for the powering of data centres is very sustainable and the fact that these large companies are located here could provide certain economic advantages. However, this does not seem to be the case:

While the development of the Prinses Ariane Windpark was originally meant for empowering 360.000 Dutch households, the data centres of Google and Microsoft currently use 100% of all of the wind energy generated. As a result, locals have been complaining about the fact that these companies use all of ‘their’ promised renewable energy and they only experience nuisance from the park without benefiting. The fact that these households are not able to use Dutch ‘green’ energy and an American company is, does not seem like a positive development to me. Accordingly, the question could be raised what the actual benefit is for the Netherlands if an American company builds a data centre here which uses our renewable energy sources?

One could argue that these data centres provide economic benefits for the government and the involved municipalities, through for example taxes, employment and residual heat. But apparently, Google has directly sold the acquired data centre in order to lease it back from another company via Luxemburg in order to pay as less tax in the Netherlands as possible. In addition, the Google data centre only provides 125 jobs and the temperature of the residual heat is way too low (between 25 and 35 degrees) in order to still use. Finally, the development of the Prinses Ariane Windpark has been heavily subsidized by the Dutch government; in total Vattenfall (the developer) will receive 660 million euros over 15 years. In other words, the Dutch tax payer is paying for the development of a windpark, of which the energy generated is only used by American companies whose presence here does not provide substantial economic benefits for the country as a whole.

In 2019, data centres in the whole of the Netherlands already presented around 3% (4 TWh) of the total electricity consumption (125 TWh). It is expected that by 2030, the data centres of Google and Microsoft in the Wieringermeer will use 8 times more electricity than currently, or around 3.5 TWh yearly. This could possibly provide issues for the Netherlands in concern to achieving their climate goals, as more renewable energy is needed.

Evidently, the development of giant data centres from foreign companies in the Netherlands has significant negative effects without providing significant economic benefits. Moreover, it is expected that under the current circumstances more new data centres will follow. In my opinion, the Dutch government should act as quickly as possible by changing existing regulations in concern to renewable energy use by foreign companies. Providing our own households and companies with ‘green’ energy should be a priority and without providing significant economic benefits for the Netherlands, foreign companies are not welcome.

To conclude, if our small country is to become the hard drive of the world, we certainly need to make sure that we profit from that.

Hollands Kroon. (2020). Zondag met Lubach slaat de plank mis over Prinses Ariane Windpark. Retrieved from: https://www.hollandskroonactueel.nl/2020/10/12/zondag-met-lubach-slaat-de-plank-mis-over-prinses-ariane-windpark/ (Accessed 12 October 2020).

NRC. (2020). Gebroken beloftes: hoe de Wieringermeerpolder dichtslibde met windturbines en datacentra. Retrieved from:https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2020/06/05/gebroken-beloftes-hoe-de-wieringermeerpolder-dichtslibde-met-windturbines-en-datacentra-a4001882 (Accessed 12 October 2020).

NRC. (2019). Datacenters verbruiken drie keer zoveel stroom als de NS. Retrieved from:
https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/05/14/datacenters-verbruiken-drie-keer-zoveel-stroom-als-de-ns-a3960091 (Accessed 12 October 2020).

Zondag met Lubach. (2020). Nederland als harde schijf. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiPoR9OvD0Y&feature=emb_title (Accessed 12 October 2020).

Please rate this

Face mask obligation in the Netherlands or not? Assessing the risk of moral hazard due to a Covid-19 measure.

5

October

2020

No ratings yet.

Due to the 2nd wave of the corona outbreak in the Netherlands, discussion concerning measures that oblige people to wear face masks on the streets, in stores and in public locations has intensified. While the Dutch government has always stated that it is not a proponent of obligating the wearing of face masks – it does not believe that it has a significant effect – it recently changed its statements due to increasing media pressure (Brussels Times, 2020).

On the 28th of September, the Dutch government advised people to wear a mask in stores and public locations in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague and Eindhoven. One day later, this advice was applied to the whole of the Netherlands except for high schools. Yet, one day later, high schools were included in the advice (RTL Nieuws, 2020). While the governments of many European countries have already introduced mandatory mask rules, in the Netherlands it remains only an advice (Rijksoverheid, 2020).

Evidently, the Dutch government is struggling with the question if to make face masks obligatory nationwide, but what makes the Dutch government so hesitant regarding this issue?

Besides that the RIVM (the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and Environment) does not believe that a nationwide mask obligation would have a significant effect on the number of Covid-19 cases, rumours go around that the organization is worried that introducing such a measure would increase the risk of moral hazard. In this case, moral hazard would take place due to a false sense of safety. People wearing a face mask assume that they are protected from Covid-19 and therefore eliminate the need for other measures, such as social distancing. In other words, when people believe that wearing a mask allows them to be closer to each other in a store or public location, they are guilty of moral hazard. As a result, other measures to decrease the spread of the virus are not or less lived by which would possibly result in more Covid-19 cases.

Nevertheless, up until today, there has been no evidence suggesting that a face mask obligation would increase the risk of moral hazard by people wearing a mask. On the contrary, recent research has suggested that mask protection actually promotes physical distancing (Washington Post, 2020). Moreover, a survey held on mask wearing behaviour and beliefs in July 2020, suggests that the respondents do not believe that wearing a face mask eliminates the need for other measures against the spread of Covid-19 (Financial Post, 2020).

In my opinion, although I don’t like face masks, the Dutch government should introduce measures concerning a nationwide face mask obligation as soon as possible. Besides that, there is no evidence that such a measure would increase moral hazard by mask wearers, I think that a mask obligation would make people more aware of the fact that the virus is still among us and thus can act as a reminder to keep sufficient distance. In addition, it is proven that face masks help (although not very good) against the spreading of the virus. If the introduction of a face mask obligation can even slightly help with preventing a new lockdown, then so be it. What do you think?

References

Brussels Times. (2020). The Netherlands considers nationwide face mask obligation. Retrieved from:
https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/world-all-news/133472/the-netherlands-considers-nationwide-face-mask-obligation/ [Accessed 5 October 2020].

Financial Post. (2020). Opinion: the moral hazard of public health measures. Retrieved from: https://financialpost.com/opinion/opinion-the-moral-hazard-of-public-health-measures [Accessed 5 October 2020].

Rijksoverheid. (2020). Dringend advies tot dragen van mondkapjes. Retrieved from: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2020/10/02/dringend-advies-tot-dragen-van-mondkapjes [Accessed 5 October 2020].

RTL Nieuws. (2020). Dringend advies: per direct in het hele land mondkapjes in openbare binnenruimtes. Retrieved from: https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/nieuws/politiek/artikel/5187225/het-dragen-van-mondkapjes-openbare-ruimten-wordt-een-landelijk [Accessed 5 October 2020].

Washington Post. (2020). How do masks change human behavior? An Italian scientist who has studied cow sociability decided to find out. Retrieved from: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/06/05/masks-benefits-study-italy/ [Accessed 5 October 2020].

Please rate this