Irish Power Crunch Could Be Prompting AWS To Ration Compute Resources (theregister.com) 16
Datacenter power issues in Ireland may be coming to a head amid reports from customers that Amazon is restricting resources users can spin up in that nation, even directing them to other AWS regions across Europe instead. From a report: Energy consumed by datacenters is a growing concern, especially in places such as Ireland where there are clusters of facilities around Dublin that already account for a significant share of the country's energy supply. This may be leading to restrictions on how much infrastructure can be used, given the power requirements. AWS users have informed The Register that there are sometimes limits on the resources that they can access in its Ireland bit barn, home to Amazon's eu-west-1 region, especially with power-hungry instances that make use of GPUs to accelerate workloads such as AI.
"You cannot spin up GPU nodes in AWS Dublin as those locations are maxed out power-wise. There is reserved capacity for EC2 just in case," one source told us. "If you have a problem with that, AWS Europe will point you at spare capacity in Sweden and other parts of the EU." We asked AWS about these issues, but when it finally responded the company was somewhat evasive. "Ireland remains core to our global infrastructure strategy, and we will continue to work with customers to understand their needs, and help them to scale and grow their business," a spokesperson told us. Ireland's power grid operator, EirGrid, was likewise less than direct when we asked if they were limiting the amount of power datacenters could consume.
"You cannot spin up GPU nodes in AWS Dublin as those locations are maxed out power-wise. There is reserved capacity for EC2 just in case," one source told us. "If you have a problem with that, AWS Europe will point you at spare capacity in Sweden and other parts of the EU." We asked AWS about these issues, but when it finally responded the company was somewhat evasive. "Ireland remains core to our global infrastructure strategy, and we will continue to work with customers to understand their needs, and help them to scale and grow their business," a spokesperson told us. Ireland's power grid operator, EirGrid, was likewise less than direct when we asked if they were limiting the amount of power datacenters could consume.
Easy fix (Score:2, Funny)
They should just build more wind and solar for base load capacity handling.
I read on slashdot that works.
Re:Easy fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Oddly enough, it would. With all the available wind around Ireland, and its consistency, they would have extra power sources readily available.
As for solar, based on this [currentresults.com], it looks like, on average, Ireland has only two months of limited sunshine. Adding solar to the above wind would increase energy resources even further.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Hans Kristian Graebener = StoneToss
Re: (Score:1)
Lol, haters mod me down for saying same thing as your +5.
Re: (Score:1)
One person says it in a trolling useless way. Gets modded appropriately.
What's the beef?
Did your virtue signaling not find enough agreeable idiots?
Re: (Score:2)
They should just build more wind and solar for base load capacity handling.
I read on slashdot that works.
Do you believe everything that you read on the interwebs?
Cuz if you do I read somewhere that there are bridges for sale in New York City.
You can make tons of $$ off the tolls before the bridges collapse due to lack of maintenance.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you believe everything that you read on the interwebs?
The claim wasn't that it's from anywhere on the web, it's about Slashdot. Slashdot curates its content in a way that is trustworthy.
I'm trying to think of someone that is generally agreeable and trusted for my example. How about Neil DeGrasse Tyson? If Dr. Tyson says something then I would believe that to be factual or an opinion that has value. It doesn't much matter if Tyson appears in a YouTube video, has written an article for some website, or appears behind the podium in a lecture hall at the local
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Dr Tyson knows nothing about energy production and distribution.
I didn't claim he was an expert on energy production and distribution, I wrote that he does very well in conveying accurate information on scientific topics. His expertise is in astrophysics but as a long time educator he's done well to educate himself well enough to speak factually and accurately on other sciences. I saw a clip of Dr. Tyson on Joe Rogan's show where he did well on explaining the engineering and economic problems of water desalination in California. An easy enough topic for a scientist t
MacMann? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think any mention of nuclear power results in an immediate loss in karma.
Cheaper ? (Score:2)
Rising electricity costs causing switch to diesel (Score:1)
This was recently posted from Sabine Hossenfelder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Rising costs on electricity are causing rail transport to switch from electric locomotives to diesel locomotives. The video starts with an experiment on trying to charge hybrid electric trucks while driving down a stretch of highway to lower costs and CO2 from burning diesel fuel in those trucks but ends with a short comment on rail transit. Electricity production shortages will drive up prices, and with that come people
Intermittency... (Score:2)
They are trying to get electricity generation 80% carbon free by 2030. The only way to do this will be by sharply reducing demand and making supply unreliable, probably using smart meters to set very high prices for calm periods and also cutting off supply to selected areas and customers during calms.
This is just the price of moving to intermittent generation for all or most of your electricity generation when you have no viable storage solution for the week long calms which affect this part of the planet