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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

#111

Post by zug_zug »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #26
zug_zug wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"consumed" means it was used for evaporated cooling and let off into the atmosphere. It's obviously a resource that replenishes, but wells replenish at a limited rate [and can run dry] so it's not a negligible issue. Feel free to google this yourself, or ironically ask an AI, it'll happily confirm it's a real issue.

That's a small portion of the consumption. According to the article, the vast majority of the water is for electricity generation, and the vast majority of that water is from hydroelectric power generation. Hydroelectric generation does not evaporate the water, it releases it downstream in a clean, usable form.

The title seems to be accidentally confusing, the 17 billion is ALL evaporative.

If we want the other 80% (which I don't personally think we care about) 211 billion more.

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

#112

Post by everdrive »

theultdev wrote: post #102
everdrive wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There would need to be some articulable upside to data centers, though. Even if we agree there should be less livestock, I don't see how that has any bearing on the data centers topic.

It's to put water usage in perspective. I think the best example is golf courses. If you think datacenters are a waste of water and you want to do a global campaign to stop building / shutdown golf courses first, then your values don't really make sense. Golf is pure leisure, and uses 531 gallons compared to 17.4 gallons a year. Datacenters on the other hand, power the site we're using right now to discuss the "probl…

I would get rid of every single golf course in the world if I could. One of the worst uses of land out there. Imagine the horrible, gross volume of herbicides each course uses to ensure that only the "correct" grass is growing over all those acres.

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

#113

Post by chneu »

zug_zug wrote: post #86
jp191919 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not need meat.

Datacenters have a readily available substitute to water if they just make less profit. I'm not giving up my meat so that datacenters can use it for cooling, if that's what you're suggesting.

Give up your meat consumption because it's more about societal excess than anything else.

Meat is and mostly always has been(in euro societies) a luxury item meant mostly for the rich.

Capitalism turned meat into a MUST HAVE item for keeping up with the Joneses.

We consume absolute insane amounts of meat nowadays, and we waste about half of it, just so people can feel good cuz theyre eating a high class excess meal.

Lol most people throughout history didn't eat much meat. It's wild how modern western people refuse to see how we'll destroy the planet trying to feed 8 billion people with the most inefficient method of creating calories(beef). The inefficiency IS THE POINT.

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

#114

Post by theultdev »

elil17 wrote: post #80
theultdev wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%

The worst designs evap up to 80%. New designs use closed-loop system where very none to little evaps (0-6%) depending on the system.

Many designs in-between with air cooling, hybrid, etc.

Still a non-issue, it's going back into the water cycle.

Any water issue would be specific to the municipality, it's not a national issue, nor is it an issue specific to datacenters, it's true for anything being built in the town (golf courses, power plants, etc.)

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

#115

Post by wraptile »

thawawaycold wrote: post #73
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.

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

calling it "actual food" is clearly misleading when majority of meat is used purely for entertainment not for survival sustenance. By that logic compute is "actual medicine" because some of compute is used for medicine?

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

#116

Post by ben_w »

zug_zug wrote: post #86
jp191919 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not need meat.

Datacenters have a readily available substitute to water if they just make less profit. I'm not giving up my meat so that datacenters can use it for cooling, if that's what you're suggesting.

From the above stats, a 2.3% change to USA meat consumption, up or down, has the same impact as a 100% change to data centre water consumption, up or down.

If I read the USDA stats correctly, US red meat and poultry production went up about 5.6% from Jan-Jun 2025 to Jan-Jun 2026, i.e. the increased production of meat led to an increase in water use that was twice as much as the water use of all the data centres combined.

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

#117

Post by adolph »

The article source for the 17B gallons is a Congressional Research Service report and its source is a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory report. Both are interesting reads. The 17B number is an estimate. Here are some of the inputs:

  * reported numbers of server deliveries
  * power draw per server
  * average utilization based on various workloads, including a Llama 70B 8 node training run
  * mix of data center cooling types
  * do math to get to 66B liters, which rounds down to 17B galoons
0. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R49057#fn10

1. https://eta.lbl.gov/publications/2024-lbnl-data-center-energ...

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

#118

Post by skinfaxi »

shimman wrote: post #104
letmevoteplease wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of the people who act like this are secretly using ChatGPT like a Republican on Grindr.

Yes I use LLMs at work because I'm "highly encouraged" to as a condition to keep my job. All I see is more paying customers finding more bugs and having a worse experience using our products.

You don't see the issues with your line of thinking? You get to absolve yourself of the responsibilities of your choice because "someone is making you" use it? How can you say you value almonds more than LLM slop when your individual choices don't reflect those values?

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

#119

Post by teeray »

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…

The problem is that these comparisons do not have equal utility. Trying to compare them to AI datacenter consumption is equivalent to justifying a gambling habit on a fixed income because groceries consume plenty of dollars as well.
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