11–20 of 425 posts
If data center water use is such a concern, why not require that data centers invest in closed-loop cooling systems? By closed-loop, I'm talking about re-condensing evaporated water and allowing the water to cool. Cooling the water would be more expensive in hotter environments, but still achievable. These data centers seem to have wild amounts of money for investment, why not just mandate conservation requirements?
The author uses a measurement I'm not familiar with so I used AI to translate it. >Using the broader initial AI water use estimate of 32,000 acre-ft/year to 290,000 acre-ft/year Note : 1 acre-foot is approximately equal to 325,851 gallons. AI : That estimate converts to approximately 10.4 billion to 94.5 billion gallons per year. Ya 10 billion gallons of water (low estimate) is totally nothing. Thx for this informati…
Water usage is, in my opinion, a fair reason to object to AI datacenter placement and growth - but in the arena of public opinion it's more nuanced than some of the other arguments that could be made (noise and power usage being much more suitable ones) but it seems to have struck a cord.
There are absolutely terrible takes on each side of the water argument but this seems to be the one people are focused on so I guess it's up to folks in the know to try and give as much clarity on the topic as possible.
A lot of confusion around AI water usage might stem from whether it's an open-loop or a closed-loop cooling system. e.g. an open-loop system which disposes of waste heat through evaporation is naturally going to draw a lot more water than a closed-loop system which recycles the water. Open-loop is likely cheaper to build, and importantly, it _does_ use up a lot of water that could otherwise be going to a municipality…
It’s all just a lack of imagination.
You can go tens of thousands of prompts to match the C02 emissions.
There are many legitimate concerns around AI. Water use/CO2 emissions isn’t currently one of them. Going vegan will make up your AI water consumption/CO2 Emissions many thousands of times over.
The author uses a measurement I'm not familiar with so I used AI to translate it. >Using the broader initial AI water use estimate of 32,000 acre-ft/year to 290,000 acre-ft/year Note : 1 acre-foot is approximately equal to 325,851 gallons. AI : That estimate converts to approximately 10.4 billion to 94.5 billion gallons per year. Ya 10 billion gallons of water (low estimate) is totally nothing. Thx for this informati…
The author uses a measurement I'm not familiar with so I used AI to translate it. >Using the broader initial AI water use estimate of 32,000 acre-ft/year to 290,000 acre-ft/year Note : 1 acre-foot is approximately equal to 325,851 gallons. AI : That estimate converts to approximately 10.4 billion to 94.5 billion gallons per year. Ya 10 billion gallons of water (low estimate) is totally nothing. Thx for this informati…
Golf courses use nearly 100x more water per day than datacenters, nearly 2b gallons per day. [1]
Residential lawn water usage is ~9b gallons per day. [0]
0 - https://19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/www3/watersense/docs/f...
1 - https://www.usga.org/content/dam/usga/pdf/Water%20Resource%2...
Data centers can inadvertently pollute water through chemical runoff from evaporative cooling systems, including biocides, corrosion inhibitors, and heavy metals that accumulate at scale when facilities discharge up to 5 million gallons daily.
https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/sustainability/4-strateg...
You can go millions of prompts before you use up as much water as it took to make a single beef burger. You can go tens of thousands of prompts to match the C02 emissions. There are many legitimate concerns around AI. Water use/CO2 emissions isn’t currently one of them. Going vegan will make up your AI water consumption/CO2 Emissions many thousands of times over.
Also agree there are other ways we should pursue in parallel regarding emissions.