[NewsPoster]

A government planning regulator in Ireland has asked Apple to provide more detail about its data center plans, a report claims. According to leaked documents, An Bord Pleanála has delayed the decision it was going to make this month over a planning decision appeal in favor of one that will take place in May, with a letter from the regulator sent to Arup Consulting Engineers, the team working on the project on behalf of Apple, requesting extra information.


According to Business Insider, there are five areas that Apple must tell the planning agency about, concerning its County Galway facility. The company and Alrup must provide the requested information by March 7, otherwise they risk the An Bord Pleanála dismissing the case entirely, severely hampering construction efforts.

Concerning the location, the board wants to know why Apple decided to build the data center in a forest near Athenry, a small town in Ireland. The agency notes "The proposed development is located in an un serviced rural area on lands outside of any settlement and which are not the subject of any specific development objective." Specifically, the agency wants to know about alternative sites examined by Apple, why this site is selected for the data center, and the justification for the site's size.

An intention by Apple to use 100 percent renewable energy at the site is questioned, as "no site or project specific information regarding renewable energy projects is provided and details of how they might be connected to the proposed development is required." Still on the subject of conservation, the agency wants the results of ecological surveys regarding protected species, including results specifically about bats in the area.

An update to the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) is also requested, with the primary request being to clarify the document to provide a "logical and clear overview of the potential future impacts arising from the overall development." The inconsistent format of the document is brought up over the environmental impact descriptions for building the data halls, as only the first is covered despite Apple ultimately planning to construct eight. The EIS also needs to address the impact the data center will have "in the absence of viable direct sustainable energy sources."

The fifth area relates to the geology of the site, with requests for "the depth of the bedrock, depth to the water table, soil/sub soil classification, and an assessment of the permeability of the soil/subsoil" surrounding the proposed buildings.

[MitchIves]

Most of these questions could be answered if they simply looked at other Apple data centers elsewhere. Why is it away from development... because they need land to expand and set up the renewable energy systems. Did they want them to put it on extremely expensive land-locked land? Seriously?

[Inkling]

Bravo Irish! Thanks for demonstrating how much you love your beautiful Emerald Isle. For vague talk about renewable power, substitute a picture of vast tracts of land, stripped of trees and covered by solar cell arrays. That's why Apple wants to locate where the land is cheap. After a decade or so, much of that land would not only be sterile of vegetation, it would be incapable of growing any in the future. The soil would be polluted from those less-than-eco-friendly arrays. Then at some point in the future, Apple will flee, leaving the Irish to clean up the mess it has created. / / / Note too that the Irish emphasize all the environmental impact studies Apple has failed to carry out. For the faddish minds at Apple, solar is virtue itself. It matters not, for instance, if the local ground water is polluted forever with heavy metal leakage. I suspect that the people at Apple who actually care about the environment are few and have no influence on company policies. All you find at Apple is a ridiculous fetish for solar, driven in part by lucrative government subsidies.