Concerns about large data centres in Scotland near homes

[Sheldonsheher]

Why is there not more outcry about data centres in Scotland. As far as I can see it’s a resource grab by tech giant companies to cream off Scotland’s natural resources. They won’t provide much benefit and will decimate local communities. For example hermiston gait right next to a student campus and homes. They will drain Scotland’s resources. Make a mockery of net zero and hose pipe bans. Yes to small data centres away from homes no to mega data centres next to people’s homes.

The cooling water will not come into contact with the components - there will be two loops, one a closed loop that is does the actual cooling and then another open one which brings in cold water and runs a heat exchange. Generating hot water which needs to be cooled before being returned to the water course.

This is the problem with new tech, there are genuine concerns - energy use, thermal pollution (hot water) and noise being the main ones. But complete random shit is also thrown out which discredits all the concerns as nonsense.

There are some interesting schemes looking at reusing the warm water to heat swimming pools and nearby buildings (again via heat exchangers not directly). There are already schemes using crematorium heat to heat swimming pools!

Scotland ran a £27bn budget deficit last year. Every year it widens. The last surplus was in the late 1980s. The population is aging, healthcare costs 40% of the public budget and is already woefully underfunded.

Where do people think this gets funded from if they aren’t prepared to live near industry? Especially one as clean and safe as data centres?

Well everyone that feels that way can have them built next to their house and those of us who object will live further away. As always they get build nearer poorer communities and who is actually going to benefit Scotland or tech companies in the USA?

also what the point of spending all this money on health esp elderly health and social care while simultaneously destroying people’s health esp young peoples health with data centres.

So, two groups. One that recognises they live in a society and is prepared to put up with some minor inconveniences to ensure the society can function into the long term. And one that won’t do that, and is happy not to have the public services?

Or is your plan that your group gets the public services too?

Genuine apologies if I’ve misunderstood your proposal. If it’s that you move further away, that is fine and good. It’s the blocking of such schemes while also wanting the benefits of public spending that relies on industry and commerce to support it that I object to.

@Sheldonsheher

also what the point of spending all this money on health esp elderly health and social care while simultaneously destroying people’s health esp young peoples health with data centres.

Which of Scotland’s historic great industries would have passed your test, if data centres don’t?

There is little evidence that data centres destroy young people’s health. They’ve been important since the 2000s. Without them,
no modern connected economy (which has enabled a shift from more-dangerous to safer occupations).

If you see my post I said yes to smaller scale data centres not hyper data centres on a massive scale which is a different thing. Also there is lots of evidence from america they are destroying peoples health in the communities they are built in.

Also you missed the point, where is the money going to go? They will use vast water and energy reserves from Scotland. But who will own them and profit from them? Given they don’t employ many locals and are run remotely.

Compared to having nothing, maybe. Compared to living near a farm, factory, distribution centre, far safer and healthier.

There’s plenty I’m worried about with AI. Data centres are nowhere near the top of the list.

If you are worried about benefit flowing to the US we need a strong domestic AI sector and infrastructure. A future Trump could switch off access to major bits of the technology. Our economy is going to become increasingly reliant on AI. I’d rather important bits of the supply chain were in our hands.

But unlike past industry, data centres create no jobs or prosperity.

Any tax goes to UK government. They have already had £420 billion of oil revenue and have spent every penny and more, so that the UK is in vast amounts of debt. It is exceptionally foolish to think they wouldn't do the same with any windfall from data centres.

The AI bubble is also due to crash, Micron and Nvidia have moved away from production of GPU's for data centres already. Companies are restricting use of AI on affordability costs, so there is just not going to be a financial return.

The likely result is that tech companies will get massive government grants, start building data centres everywhere, pollute groundwater and disrupt electrical supply.

Then they will be abandoned during the crash and the public will bear the cost of cleaning up the sites. It has happened with every major polluting industry in Scotland and it will happen again without support for the moratorium.

A moratorium is not a ban; if data centres do turn out to be safe and beneficial they could go ahead after research. But everything so far indicates they are neither safe nor beneficial, so we shouldn't build any until it can be proven they are.

They have to go somewhere... more space in Scotland than down south.

Theres no escaping AI now. It's here and we've barely seen the start.

I would be astounded if AI turns out to be a fad. This is like electricity or industry or agriculture in its scale, in my view (obviously that’s a pretty big range in itself!).

No jobs at data centres is true. Prosperity… depends what you mean and the jury is out. It’s plausible it will drive enormous prosperity, and equally plausible it unleashes horrific risks. Maybe both. But the genie is out of the bottle.

The one position that doesn’t make sense (unless you think it’s a fad) is to stand on the sidelines and become totally reliant on foreign providers, even more than we already are. The UK isn’t an AI superpower but we also aren’t nothing. We are going to get the downside risks regardless. We should want the upside and some measure of sovereign independence too.

When the rivers are already low, and already warmer than the river life is adapted for, warming it further is going to add to the harm.

And summers in future are likely to be hotter and drier than this one.

French power stations are having to go offline this summer for exactly this reason..one reason why despite all the sunshine, electrity is not actually cheap at the moment - we are having to burn more gas because there is less French nuclear to import.

Add in massive extra power loads and both short term and long term it means nothing good 😬😬

He wouldnt seem to know very much if he thinks that the cooling water directly contacts electrical components... ;)

Data centres undoubdetly consume huge amounts of power. I will admit to not undertanding why the water that's used for cooling can't be recycled. That seems strange. But the approach of letting people build huge data centres is not different to every other 'tech' revoliution from the spinning jenny to the factory to the computer and so on and so on. And a huge data centre is much easier to tax though creating a new subset of business rate for such buildings than trying to tax on-line services...

Let a critical mass of them be built, and then quadruple the business rates on them. Follow it by a carbon tax that exponentially increases the more power is consumed and tens of billions of additional tax receipts for the government to squander :)

Sorry I don’t agree with this arguments it’s like saying the atomic bomb is no different from when they developed the canon ball. No sorry it’s fundamentally different in its effects. Also people have died for generations from industrial injury but we have supposed to have moved past that.

also if they are so safe and beneficial build them in the centre of towns next to the parliament next to the White House next to Buckingham palace and in the expensive parts of towns!

Also people have died for generations from industrial injury but we have supposed to have moved past that.

With data centres, we have moved past that. How many deaths per 100,000 annually amongst data-centre workers?

It's 100 for fishing, 8 for farming, 3 for construction.

One massive reason for increased industrial safety is automation and a shift towards digital and service sectors. Data centres are central to that shift.

The reason we don't put data centres next to Buckingham Palace is not that they are dangerous, it's that the land is expensive and data centres don't benefit from being close to Bond Street and the Ritz.

Though there are cases where data centres are in very central locations: those for finance where speed makes a difference to the millisecond. Many of the highest-paid people in the country work right next to them, and are fine.

I don’t think you are differentiating smaller data centres from hyper data centres which are different .

@LauraNorda @Randomchat @GeneralPeter

https://aprs.scot/data-centre-map/#total

Here is your link for energy demand, 1.5x Scotland’s total energy use is now an outdated statistic and it is only getting worse.

https://betterdatacenterproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Diesel-Generators-at-Data-Centers-Status-Impacts-and-Protective-Practices.pdf

Here is information about the reliance on diesel generators (and suggested corrections to be fair - though I don’t see these ai companies acting in good faith…)

evidence of bad faith acting by said companies:

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2026/07/06/data-centres-scotland/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/09/google-developers-significantly-misstate-carbon-emissions-of-proposed-uk-datacentres

Google still exists and functions, using a tenth of the energy ChatGPT uses per search, if you would like to read more.

@AuldWeegie

This charity is doing what it can to oppose data centres. You can see planned projects and organised opposition to them on their table.

aprs.scot/data-centre-map/

@FunnyOrca Google still exists and functions, using a tenth of the energy ChatGPT uses per search, if you would like to read more.

I spend a lot of time studying risks and harms of AI, with sources of much greater credibility than the Canary.

There are many, many things to worry about with AI. Focusing on data centres is like looking at climate change and deciding that the big issue is people not switching off their mobile phone chargers.

So, if AI is so risky, isn't making life harder for data centres a good thing? Probably not: it significantly weakens the UK's ability to shape the technology and manage risks if we are fully reliant on foreign infrastructure.

For a country our size we are unusually influential in shaping AI norms, but that won't last if we decide to stand on the sidelines. The technology will then continue regardless around us, exposing us to many of the most serious harms but without levers by which to influence them.

(Google would not exist, incidentally, without data centres).

You still won’t differentiate between smaller data centres and hyper data centres so many of your agreements are not very convincing .

So they will be paying for electricity (do companies pay vat on fuel) paying business rates, paying for water at corporate prices …

Having a handful of small data centres does nothing to support AI sovereignty, generates less tax revenue than large ones at a time where income tax take may be about to fall off a cliff, and reduces harms in the way that leaving only one mobile charger on instead of five addresses climate change.

It doesn’t do much for your industrial safety point either: having small data centres rather than large ones will reduce expected deaths from what to what?

There are loads of them in central London already ! There are data centres in Old Street, Liverpool Street, Brick Lane

They have been there for years and no one noticed or cared

Because small ones don’t make so much pollution or noise.
the scale or energy and water pollution is not comparable so I feel your not being very genuine