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Amazon Says Its Data Centers Use 2.5B Gallons of Water

bloomberg.com

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Re: Amazon Says Its Data Centers Use 2.5B Gallons of Water

#41

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

mattcantstop wrote: post #21
chasebank wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another data point. California pistachios consume about 500–600 billion gallons of water per year.

I've always found this a weird comparison. There is no more important use of water than providing food. I love tech and earn my living from it, but the importance of food cannot be overstated.

Almonds use more water for the same calories of nutrition compared to a grain, somewhere from 4-8x more depending on the source.

Plus California was/is in a drought for years, that's why people bring up the almonds example.

Re: Amazon Says Its Data Centers Use 2.5B Gallons of Water

#43

Post by Robdel12 »

mattcantstop wrote: post #21
chasebank wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another data point. California pistachios consume about 500–600 billion gallons of water per year.

I've always found this a weird comparison. There is no more important use of water than providing food. I love tech and earn my living from it, but the importance of food cannot be overstated.

You find growing an incredibly water heavy crop in a place that doesn’t have the water supply to do so a weird comparison? And it’s not even a food that’s needed, so you can’t stand on that either.

Re: Amazon Says Its Data Centers Use 2.5B Gallons of Water

#44

Post by AmazingTurtle »

I was wondering "use" means here, as-in.. does it not recirculate? And apparently the answer seems to be: it's circulated/vaporized into the air. It may fall down as rain somewhere else, not necessarily in the local area where the water was withdrawn from, effectively draining the water from the local area at least.

Also, I was wondering, what does 2.5B gallons of water equate to? Here's the answer for curious minds:

> Using EPA’s cited 82 gallons per person per day figure, 2.5B gallons/year equals the annual household water use of about 83,500 people.

I did some further math... If 1bn users world wide leverage AWS services in their daily routine (netflix, whatever, ...), the formula becomes this one:

2.5B gallons/year ÷ 1B users = 2.5 gallons/user/year

> Compared with the EPA-style U.S. household benchmark we used earlier of about 82 gallons/person/day, that would be: > > 0.00685 ÷ 82 ≈ 0.0084%

So the AWS data centers make up roughly an additional 0.01% of daily water usage. Why is this worth a bloomberg article?

Re: Amazon Says Its Data Centers Use 2.5B Gallons of Water

#45

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

Defensive HN replies about "AI" water use seem more incriminating than the title or even the contents of this article

There is nothing to indicate 2.5B is too much, too little or just right. This is just reporting data. But HN replies are extraordinarily defensive. Why

The replies are reminiscent of those in threads under submissions reporting facts about "crypto" not too long ago, before SBF went to prison and the crypto hype subsided

Re: Amazon Says Its Data Centers Use 2.5B Gallons of Water

#46

Post by endymi0n »

The whole use of the word “use” throws me off. It’s not like the water just disappears. It’s still very much there, just… well, yep, what exactly? Dirtier? Evaporated? Warmer? We’re drinking water every day from the tap that has previously been “used” as fish pee, nuclear plant cooling water and sawmill fuel. I’m not too dead yet and I think it would be great to get a more scientific discussion from public media.

Re: Amazon Says Its Data Centers Use 2.5B Gallons of Water

#47

Post by stvltvs »

morpheos137 wrote: post #33

the water cycle exists. unless data centers are being built in deserts or run off fossil aquifers the or other water constrained circumstance the waste is supurious. As other commenters have said closed loop cooling exists. Billions of motor vehicles run on water based cooling and consume virtually nothing once filled.

> unless data centers are being built in deserts or run off fossil aquifers the or other water constrained circumstance the waste is supurious.

In some cases, they are.

The Colorado River basin waters seven states and is in extreme drought. There are proposed data centers in the area that would require water from the Colorado or from already distressed aquifers.

Re: Amazon Says Its Data Centers Use 2.5B Gallons of Water

#48

Post by nevir »

criddell wrote: post #13
Aurornis wrote: post #4

2.5 billion gallons per year. The US uses about 2 billion gallons of water per day on golf courses.

A lot of the golf courses around here use reclaimed water (treated effluent). Hopefully data centers aren't using potable water.

They hook into industrial water supplies (usually not potable, unless the utility has no other option)

Re: Amazon Says Its Data Centers Use 2.5B Gallons of Water

#50

Post by rayiner »

scrumper wrote: post #29

This water usage argument against data centers is so specious I almost think it's spread as a deliberate talking point by DC proponents. Power consumption and effect on electricity infrastructure is so, so, so much more consequential and dangerous. It alone is way more than enough on which to base a very solid anti-DC campaign. The water argument weakens the whole anti-DC position by being so refutable. EDIT: with pr…

Nah, it's just that most people function based on intuitive, rather than precise, models of how the world works. They have trouble telling millions of gallons apart from billions of gallons. But they were taught through childhood not to leave the water running while brushing their teeth. So the concept of data centers wasting water is intuitively persuasive to them.

I actually have a great deal of respect for the average person. Most of the time, the intuitive model of the world is very good at getting workable answers. But it completely falls apart when something is outside the universe of what people deal with on a day-to-day basis. Try asking the people in your family what the profit margin of a grocery store is. People might go to grocery stores all the time and know exactly how to comparison shop to optimize their spend. But most actually have no idea about the numbers involved at each step of the supply chain. Trying to explain inflation to people over the last few years has been literal hell, because virtually nobody understands the differences between price levels and the first and second derivatives thereof.

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