Objectively, yes. It means to consume excessive or plentiful amounts of something, and 23% of Ireland’s electricity generation capability is objectively an excessive and plentiful amount.
Objectively no, 23% of nothing is nothing. Ireland has no industry. Their grid is smaller than a major city's grid. That this is 23% says a lot more about the size of the Irish grid and their lack of industry than it does about how much energy a datacenter uses.
The characterization as “excessive” is subjective. If you disagree, what are your objective criteria for making that claim? You fundamentally can’t give a correct answer to that, because it requires defining a threshold, and that’s subjective.
If people seriously think claims like this are “objective”, I weep for our collective understanding of reality.
Of course it’s excessive. Questions should be asked about any one industry using 23% of a nation’s generating capacity, when it was not built for this purpose.
Of course it’s excessive. Ireland’s electricity is not cheap or in such plentiful supply that homes are not affective by this. These data centres are driving up the electricity prices for everyone in Ireland.
Of course it’s excessive. There are only 80 datacentres that used 7.8TWh between them in 2025. That amount of power is used by only the heaviest of industries; it’s 3x more power than the UK steel industry uses, for example.
Of course it’s excessive. The amount of energy used means that more fossil fuels is being used to power them than would otherwise be necessary. Legislation has been written so that new datacentres must in future provide their own [fossil fuel] generators. This in a time of man-made climate change where we all urgently need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. It’s not just excessive, it’s deeply irresponsible.
None of your statements give objective conclusions, unless one accepts as premises the implicit value judgments and other subjective assessments they depend on.
It shouldn't surprise you to know that there are people who disagree with everything you're saying. Do you really believe they're all "objectively wrong"? That's the territory of religion - "only my beliefs are the real ones".
They basically re-report press releases. I've dealt with The Register as well as their sister publications back when I was still in product (especially during shudder RSA).
The Reg keeps a snarky tone, but immediately becomes deferential once a vendor begins a content campaign with them.
They also operated a bot account on HN for years that was spamming Register articles for almost 3 years and accumulated 66K karma until I and a couple others complained about it.
I believe so. They're not known for neutrally reporting them, which is different.