Finland’s Supervisory Agency (LVV) has told the company behind Google’s planned data centres in Muhos and Kajaani to suspend work that would “significantly alter the environment” by 23 October, after more than 300 hectares of forest were cleared, at one site without the mandatory environmental impact assessment. The developer has until 14 October to explain itself, or face enforcement proceedings.
The sites are part of the €13bn investment Google announced less than a month ago, its largest single investment in Europe, and Google says it “fell short” of its own standards and will follow the agency’s guidance. Interesting test of how far Nordic countries will bend environmental rules to win the AI data-centre race.
In the Finnish news it had been said that a part of the deal is google will bring their own electricity, and that this halt is due to ecological investigations
Yeah, bring their own electricity, i.e., from generation that was previously part of the national grid anyway. They have just bought up the supply.
Yeah that’s what it says in OPs insert as well. The ecological impacts of clearing forests for the data centers and especially for the energy infrastructure they need is a major question here, but one that the politicians and authorities seem to be willing to overlook with this one case being the only exception so far.