Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door
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Re: Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door
#2Re: Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door
#3 A data center like Meta’s, which was completed last year, typically guzzles around 500,000 gallons of water a day. New data centers built to train more powerful A.I. are set to be even thirstier, requiring millions of gallons of water a day
Re: Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door
#4A data center like Meta’s, which was completed last year, typically guzzles around 500,000 gallons of water a day. New data centers built to train more powerful A.I. are set to be even thirstier, requiring millions of gallons of water a day I naively assumed these were closed loops. Where does the water go? I would think it just gets warm and does not evaporate.
Option A is to build a closed-loop system, that runs a million gallons of water per day through chillers and recirculates it. You need to find chillers that can handle that load continuously and enough power to run them.
Option B is an open-loop system where you run a million gallons of water through exchangers, heat it up, then dump the hot water and find a way to get a new million gallons of water from the local municipality.
Option B is cheaper, so they do that. Higher water prices would change that equation, but that's not what we have now, and it's hard to pitch an Option A project if anyone else is willing to offer rates that make Option B work. The Prisoner's Dilemma strikes again.
Re: Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door
#5A data center like Meta’s, which was completed last year, typically guzzles around 500,000 gallons of water a day. New data centers built to train more powerful A.I. are set to be even thirstier, requiring millions of gallons of water a day I naively assumed these were closed loops. Where does the water go? I would think it just gets warm and does not evaporate.
Option A is to build a closed-loop system, that runs a million gallons of water per day through chillers and recirculates it. You need to find chillers that can handle that load continuously and enough power to run them. Option B is an open-loop system where you run a million gallons of water through exchangers, heat it up, then dump the hot water and find a way to get a new million gallons of water from the local mu…
I find it hard to believe continuous consumption of potable municipal water is cheaper than running chillers or exchangers cooled by a river/ocean, especially considering powerplants and the like have been doing the latter for decades
Re: Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door
#6Why isn't the focus on the local government who is allocating that much water without caring about the effects?
Yes AI is wasteful, but if they couldn't get water they wouldn't build there.
Re: Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door
#7Why isn't the focus on the local government who is allocating that much water without caring about the effects? Yes AI is wasteful, but if they couldn't get water they wouldn't build there.
Because governments and elections can be influenced.
Re: Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Option A is to build a closed-loop system, that runs a million gallons of water per day through chillers and recirculates it. You need to find chillers that can handle that load continuously and enough power to run them. Option B is an open-loop system where you run a million gallons of water through exchangers, heat it up, then dump the hot water and find a way to get a new million gallons of water from the local mu…
I find it hard to believe continuous consumption of potable municipal water is cheaper than running chillers or exchangers cooled by a river/ocean, especially considering powerplants and the like have been doing the latter for decades
Maybe building a heat exchanger in a river requires loads of environmental / planning permits, but just producing millions of gallons of (warm) "sewage" doesn't, because it's already allowed?
Re: Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door
#9A data center like Meta’s, which was completed last year, typically guzzles around 500,000 gallons of water a day. New data centers built to train more powerful A.I. are set to be even thirstier, requiring millions of gallons of water a day I naively assumed these were closed loops. Where does the water go? I would think it just gets warm and does not evaporate.
Option A is to build a closed-loop system, that runs a million gallons of water per day through chillers and recirculates it. You need to find chillers that can handle that load continuously and enough power to run them. Option B is an open-loop system where you run a million gallons of water through exchangers, heat it up, then dump the hot water and find a way to get a new million gallons of water from the local mu…
Stargate is closed loop.
Re: Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door
#10A data center like Meta’s, which was completed last year, typically guzzles around 500,000 gallons of water a day. New data centers built to train more powerful A.I. are set to be even thirstier, requiring millions of gallons of water a day I naively assumed these were closed loops. Where does the water go? I would think it just gets warm and does not evaporate.
That whole paragraph also seems completely unrelated to the issue as well. It doesn’t sound like water supply is the issue so much as sediment in the water breaking pumps and clogging the infrastructure.
I guess the theory here is that the amount of water being cycled is stirring up sediment somehow? But if that’s the theory they don’t really say that or talk to anyone who says why or how that’s happening. Is the consumed water being returned to the aquifer somehow and churning up sediment with a lot of added turbulence? Is the volume being consumed creating some sort of suction effect that’s pulling sediment up? Was this project one of the ones that required “dewatering” as described in the article? Is the theory that is the thing that caused the problem and if so, does that mean the approving process for that needs an overhaul?
Not to say there aren’t issues to be addressed here, but the big “gallons of water” number seems to be tossed around a lot in these discussions with no quantification about what that actually means. The solution to the problem is different if that means gallons of water being pulled from the ecosystem entirely , or if it means gallons of water being heated and having effects on the ecosystem, or it means gallons of water burning through processing and treatment plant resources faster.