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US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

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Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#71

Post by myrmidon »

trentor wrote: post #55
thevinter wrote: post #13

Irrespective of how this number is calculated, whether is blue/green water etc here is some comparison data for context, since I personally think that hearing big numbers without any point of reference is pointless. Annual withdrawals (2015) - Thermoelectric power: ~48.5 trillion gal - Irrigation: ~43.1 trillion gal - Public supply: ~14.2 trillion gal - Self-supplied industrial: ~5.4 trillion gal - Aquaculture: ~2.76…

HN Thread with a whataboutism comment as top voted? Must be the datacenter water thingy again. It's always a rhyme of the same comment.

If you need to denigrate pure context as "whataboutism", then maybe your core argument is trash?

I mean, sure, lets not build datacenters that are 100% evaporation-cooled into each desert-oasis.

But if general water availability is your concern, than datacenters are so far down the priority list that any argument involving them is just laughable. And if you are against datacenters, then find a proper argument instead of making environmentalism look stupid.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#72

Post by Vvector »

An acre of alfalfa is typically irrigated at 5.5 AF per year. The standard center pivot field is 130 acres ~ 700 AF of irrigation, to grow alfalfa to ship overseas. Converting to gallons, 210 million gallons, for one field.

80 fields of alfalfa equals all the data center water usage.

USDA estimates that total irrigation uses 55 million AF of water per year.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#73

Post by thawawaycold »

wraptile wrote: post #56
thevinter wrote: post #13

Irrespective of how this number is calculated, whether is blue/green water etc here is some comparison data for context, since I personally think that hearing big numbers without any point of reference is pointless. Annual withdrawals (2015) - Thermoelectric power: ~48.5 trillion gal - Irrigation: ~43.1 trillion gal - Public supply: ~14.2 trillion gal - Self-supplied industrial: ~5.4 trillion gal - Aquaculture: ~2.76…

> Livestock: ~730 billion gal This is a good illustration how cursed the datacenter topic has become when people go out of their minds on computer cooling while continuing to eat meat which lets be perfectly clear - is mostly for entertainment purposes. I had someone berate me for defending datacenter water use and their last post was literally a cheese burger.

yeah people should just accept starting to feed on AI slop for sustenance instead of actual food! How dare they have a preference

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#74

Post by jp191919 »

zug_zug wrote: post #65
wraptile wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Livestock: ~730 billion gal This is a good illustration how cursed the datacenter topic has become when people go out of their minds on computer cooling while continuing to eat meat which lets be perfectly clear - is mostly for entertainment purposes. I had someone berate me for defending datacenter water use and their last post was literally a cheese burger.

Well the thing with the livestock is that you have to give a cow water. Datacenters do not need water . It is just slightly cheaper for them than cooling with electricity. Datacenters should be required by law to pay to build adequate power generation and infrastructure to pay for their consumption, and ideally in a way where it isn't a ghastly eyesore.

We do not need meat.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#76

Post by zug_zug »

dgellow wrote: post #31
thevinter wrote: post #13

Irrespective of how this number is calculated, whether is blue/green water etc here is some comparison data for context, since I personally think that hearing big numbers without any point of reference is pointless. Annual withdrawals (2015) - Thermoelectric power: ~48.5 trillion gal - Irrigation: ~43.1 trillion gal - Public supply: ~14.2 trillion gal - Self-supplied industrial: ~5.4 trillion gal - Aquaculture: ~2.76…

You have to look at the local level, water isn’t distributed the same way around a country as large as the US. Some regions have no water problems while others have a lot of consumption and competition to get access to it

Yeah that's fair.

I haven't seen a single article doing that though (from either side) and I honestly think that nobody would even trust these companies at this point (Meta et al) to give an honest analysis anyways.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#77

Post by elil17 »

imglorp wrote: post #53

Is anybody working on using all this waste heat for desalination? I think cold seawater can be used for the external loop, through a heat exchanger where it would meet the heated pure water from the internal cooling loops. This would cause evaporation of the salt water which could be captured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desalination#Multi-stage_flash...

Waste heat from data centers is significantly below the temperature that desalination systems typically use. While a desalination system could theoretically use data center waste heat, it would require far higher capital costs than other desalination systems.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#78

Post by KennyBlanken »

wraptile wrote: post #56
thevinter wrote: post #13

Irrespective of how this number is calculated, whether is blue/green water etc here is some comparison data for context, since I personally think that hearing big numbers without any point of reference is pointless. Annual withdrawals (2015) - Thermoelectric power: ~48.5 trillion gal - Irrigation: ~43.1 trillion gal - Public supply: ~14.2 trillion gal - Self-supplied industrial: ~5.4 trillion gal - Aquaculture: ~2.76…

> Livestock: ~730 billion gal This is a good illustration how cursed the datacenter topic has become when people go out of their minds on computer cooling while continuing to eat meat which lets be perfectly clear - is mostly for entertainment purposes. I had someone berate me for defending datacenter water use and their last post was literally a cheese burger.

Mr. Gotcha, is that you?

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#79

Post by causalmodels »

wraptile wrote: post #56
thevinter wrote: post #13

Irrespective of how this number is calculated, whether is blue/green water etc here is some comparison data for context, since I personally think that hearing big numbers without any point of reference is pointless. Annual withdrawals (2015) - Thermoelectric power: ~48.5 trillion gal - Irrigation: ~43.1 trillion gal - Public supply: ~14.2 trillion gal - Self-supplied industrial: ~5.4 trillion gal - Aquaculture: ~2.76…

> Livestock: ~730 billion gal This is a good illustration how cursed the datacenter topic has become when people go out of their minds on computer cooling while continuing to eat meat which lets be perfectly clear - is mostly for entertainment purposes. I had someone berate me for defending datacenter water use and their last post was literally a cheese burger.

The datacenter topic is cursed because people are afraid of ai. People seized on water usage because it is a more legible and tractable focus for their fear.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#80

Post by elil17 »

theultdev wrote: post #64
fridental wrote: post #4

What happens with the water in the DC after it has been consumed?

a little evaps, goes back into the water cycle. non-issue, chinese propaganda to get us to slow down. unfortunately some people parrot it, but most are smart enough to know it's bs. you'd think they would want to shutdown golf courses first, it's pure leisure and much more water, but it's not about that :)

A little evaps? It's like 80%
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