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I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumption

construction-physics.com

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Re: I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumption

#11

Post by incone123 »

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #8
schiffern wrote: post #3

In the comments someone mentioned 400 golf courses in Arizona, and it got me to wondering... In the US, golf courses consumed 1.68 million acre-feet of water in 2022[0] (down 29% from 2006, they are pleased to report), which works out to 1,499 million gallons per day. So golf courses consume three times as much water as AI. Were's the proportional level of outrage over that issue, I wonder? [0] https://gcmonline.com/…

Golf courses also get de-facto tax subsidies under a property value tax, because they're basically empty lots. If you bought that golf course and built something productive that produced value for the community, like apartments, detached houses, a factory, a store, anything at all, you'd suddenly have to pay more tax on it. A land value tax would push golf courses further from city centers.

I have never played golf but why do you say it does not produce value for the community? Why is it better to have homes at the cost of lost recreational space?

Re: I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumption

#12

Post by orlp »

> On the one hand, a huge dam reservoir does increase the level of water evaporation relative to an undammed river by increasing the amount of water surface area.

That depends entirely on the depth of the river and the depth of the reservoir. If the average depth of the reservoir is deeper than the average depth of a river there is less surface area.

Re: I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumption

#13

Post by [deleted] »

orlp wrote: post #12

> On the one hand, a huge dam reservoir does increase the level of water evaporation relative to an undammed river by increasing the amount of water surface area. That depends entirely on the depth of the river and the depth of the reservoir. If the average depth of the reservoir is deeper than the average depth of a river there is less surface area.

[deleted]

Re: I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumption

#14

Post by strken »

incone123 wrote: post #11
01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Golf courses also get de-facto tax subsidies under a property value tax, because they're basically empty lots. If you bought that golf course and built something productive that produced value for the community, like apartments, detached houses, a factory, a store, anything at all, you'd suddenly have to pay more tax on it. A land value tax would push golf courses further from city centers.

I have never played golf but why do you say it does not produce value for the community? Why is it better to have homes at the cost of lost recreational space?

One of the golf clubs near me has a joining fee of $50k and annual membership fees of $8k. The club next to it has annual membership fees of about $700. The one next to that has annual fees in the $1k to $3k range.

I am willing to believe that one golf club may be worth subsidising, but not three, not the ones which have locks on the gate to prevent community access, and not when the joining and membership fees are so high.

Re: I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumption

#15

Post by spectraldrift »

orlp wrote: post #12

> On the one hand, a huge dam reservoir does increase the level of water evaporation relative to an undammed river by increasing the amount of water surface area. That depends entirely on the depth of the river and the depth of the reservoir. If the average depth of the reservoir is deeper than the average depth of a river there is less surface area.

I had the same initial thought as well, but I realized this caveat would only be true if dams just made rivers deeper. But dams flood valleys and they make the water body much wider, not just deeper. A river that was 300 feet wide becomes a lake that’s miles wide. The width increase (10-100x) completely overwhelms the depth increase (maybe 3-10x), so surface area increases substantially.

Given that Earth averages towards smooth, the rate of width increase overwhelms the rate of depth increase when dams fill.

The only exceptions might be narrow canyon dams with nowhere to spread laterally, or dams on already-wide rivers. But those are rare.

Re: I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumption

#16

Post by King-Aaron »

I find it interesting that people go to such great lengths to come up with anti-environmental positions, even when the issue they're talking about it overwhelmingly obvious without doing deep research into it.

Even without pawing over the exact numbers, having a cursory understanding of how a datacentre works should highlight to you that excessive water consumption is going to be a problem. I couldn't imagine writing essays to try and argue against that in the first place. And to be an order of magnitude wrong in your position... sheeesh.

Re: I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumption

#19

Post by cwillu »

sitkack wrote: post #17

Author seems to be still remiss in correcting the over zealous behavior. > Does it make sense to include this water evaporation in the share of water consumed by data centers? I think it’s debatable.

“Please don't sneer”

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumption

#20

Post by sitkack »

King-Aaron wrote: post #16

I find it interesting that people go to such great lengths to come up with anti-environmental positions, even when the issue they're talking about it overwhelmingly obvious without doing deep research into it . Even without pawing over the exact numbers, having a cursory understanding of how a datacentre works should highlight to you that excessive water consumption is going to be a problem. I couldn't imagine writin…

Not only that, but the guy is clearly out of his element, but makes a big smart looking report and this wrong by a factor of 10.

Ground water is not fungible economic value. When its gone it is gone because the aquifers collapse. The CA central valley dropped 9M from 1925 to 1977 [1]

The space the water was in, is gone. Datacenters pumping groundwater will do the same exact thing.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1jby06/this_is_the_im...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-35582-x

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