In the light of Prime Minister Xavier Bettel's recent State of the Nation speech, the Google date centre affair has spurred a whole new line of debate.
According to Minister for Energy Claude Turmes, the data centre brings with it the opportunity to be not only one of the biggest and most prestigious, but one of the most efficient data centres in the world. However, this potential achievement did not impress all of the Members of Parliament at Thursday morning's discussion: CSV leader in the Chamber of Deputies Martine Hansen wondered if it would even be possible to reach the country's climate targets if such a project was indeed took place.
Responding to Hansen's concern, Turmes was of the opinion that this would bear no impact on current aims, as it would only
stimulate renewable energy production. It was first and foremost, according to Turmes, important to conceptualise the data centre on a technical level, as this would influence its energy consumption. These responses, however, did not satisfy the opposition.
ADR MP Gaston Gibéryen, for his part, wanted to know how much of the nation's electricity consumption the data centre would use up. The Alternative Democratic Reform Party deputy further inquired as to whether Enovos would play a part in determining the expenditure. On that note, the Prime Minister was urged to no longer deliver speculative answers to this matter. Since there were still no official figures available in this regard, Bettel promised they would be presented to the Chamber as soon as they became available.
Turmes added that so far, Enovos had only contributed towards looking for an ideal location for the centre.
One issue that was not discussed, despite cropping up repeatedly since the plans for a data centre were announced, was the level of water consumption it would necessitate.
