Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret

#151

Post by jvanderbot » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:16 PM UTC

londons_explore wrote: post #25

dsco wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes if we squint really hard then this could be the reason. It could also be because it's a PR disaster.

The water use actually isn't all that high - it's just easy to make "a million gallons of water every year" sound like a lot, but compared to a 500 acre farm which could easily use 3 million gallons every day , it's not very big. The electricity use is really substantial though, but that's harder for people to visualise so gets less media attention.

Right, this argument completely lacks context. Agricultural use of water is astounding. And even that is generally much less than the enormous amount of water that is available in agricultural states (CA notwithstanding).

Minnesota where I live gets approximately 3x10^13 gallons of rain / year. Yes, almost none of that is captured for use, but it's not like we're talking about a fundamentally physically limited resource here. It's just that there's a bad time/phase mismatch.

Hell, a 500 acre data center has >200 million gallons drop onto it out of the sky in MN, each year (20in avg * 500 acre = 10,000 acre-inches)

Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret

#152

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:18 PM UTC

""It would be better if they could own up to it," said a current Amazon software developer, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. "Even if they said it was a low priority, at least that would be honest.""

HN commentary on water use by so-called "tech" companies usually includes a number of mindlessly-parroted, bad faith "arguments"

One of these is to try to compare the new (additive) water use by non-essential data centers with existing (non-additive) water use by agriculture

Putting aside that (a) data centers are non-essential and not comparable to food, water or shelter and (b) agricultural use is not new, these "arguments" are also ignoring that (c) the so-called "tech" companies are trying to hide the data

Employees of these so-called "tech" companies might be experiencing guilt over this dishonest tactic, but not enough to make them quit

When their employer hides the data this makes accurate comparisons, e.g., to existing water use by other recipients, difficult if not impossible

Does agriculture also try to hide its water use

If it did, then HN comments could not attempt bad faith comparisons

Because there would be no data to cite

Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret

#153

Post by triceratops » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:19 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #82

gruez wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pork and chicken have better feed conversion ratios and water consumption

Cattle water consumption should be meaningless. If a cow is drinking water from a surface water source and breathing/sweating/peeing it out in a pasture, that's the same process that would be happening if humans didn't exist. It isn't meaningless due to industrial farming. Chickens and pigs are even more likely to be industrially farmed than cattle are. If we lowered our meat consumption by about 90% then we wouldn't…

If humans didn't farm them there'd be far fewer cows alive and drinking water.

Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret

#154

Post by Insanity » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:20 PM UTC

ben_w wrote: post #135

artursapek wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah people who eat beef are actually healthier than vegetarians.

The difference in life expectancy between the USA (where beef is heavily consumed) and India (where you may get lynched on suspicion of eating it) is 78.39 - 72 = 6.39 years at birth. Most people attribute this difference to the GDP/capita ($89,600 vs. $12,132 PPP) or the number of doctors per capita (36.082 vs. 7.265 per 10k), not the diet.

At the risk of stating the obvious, meat is not the only difference in diet.

But agreed that diet is also not the only link to longevity. Although a Mediterranean diet is higher on plant based foods, considered healthier, and those countries do have better life expectancy than USA.

Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret

#155

Post by hwillis » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:20 PM UTC

julianozen wrote: post #147

Dumb question, but is this done with fresh water? If so, why? If not, does it matter how much water is used?

Its freshwater and has to be freshwater because it goes through pipes and/or is evaporated. Corrosion, scaling and fouling are all issues.

Even if seawater was easy to use and datacenters were near the shore, it would produce very saline brine which would be difficult to safely get rid of.

Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret

#156

Post by thayne » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:22 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #10

> noted that it would be harder to reach its internal target if its calculations included “secondary” use—water used in generating the electricity to power its data centres, according to the document. Ok, when we're considering how much water a person uses, are we going to include the water used to grow the almonds you ate? Because agriculture is going to dwarf anything that data centers use.

Does Amazon control the generation of this electricity? If so, then I definitely think it should be included, because it is something that Amazon has control over, and could possibly reduce water use.

If it is the power company, then the relevant metric is the amount of power consumed, as it would be up to the power company to find a more water-efficient way to produce power.

Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret

#157

Post by mikkupikku » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:23 PM UTC

WolfeReader wrote: post #72

macinjosh wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beef is more nutrient efficient though and has better macros for human consumption. It has 4 times more protein, less fat, and no carbs. Seems to me at least Americans could do well to eat more beef and less products created from processed almonds mixed with refined vegetable oils and sugar. Beef and milk are harvested ready to eat. Vegan substitutes are all highly processed. Processed food consumption is associated…

Factory-farmed beef is the worst source of pollution in the food industry. We definitely need less of that.

"Factory-farmed beef" doesn't even exist. All cows get raised in fields for their first 12-18 months. The ""factory-farming"" is just a feed lot they get taken to for 3-6 months to eat grain before slaughter.

If you want to talk about pigs or chickens, that's an entirely different story. Those do get raised full life cycle in factory-like industrial facilities. But those aren't cows.

Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret

#158

Post by jspiral » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:23 PM UTC

ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote: post #115

rtaylorgarlock wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And cheaper cow production, focused on grain-feeding, uses even more water than grass feeding; after spending a month in Switzerland, it's wild to see how addicted we Americans are to cheap beef.

"It's wild to see how Americans are able to procure an extremely high quality protein source inexpensively"

how dare you, he spent a whole month in switzerland. what an exalted being

Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret

#159

Post by didibus » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:24 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #10

> noted that it would be harder to reach its internal target if its calculations included “secondary” use—water used in generating the electricity to power its data centres, according to the document. Ok, when we're considering how much water a person uses, are we going to include the water used to grow the almonds you ate? Because agriculture is going to dwarf anything that data centers use.

I find this loses the point, because agriculture is essential. If we preserve water it's because we want to keep enough of it for essentials like agriculture and such. Not that agricultural practices shouldn't better conserve water, but it's the usage of water for non-essential things that I think most people find wasteful.

Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret

#160

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Oct 27, 2025, 4:27 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #10

> noted that it would be harder to reach its internal target if its calculations included “secondary” use—water used in generating the electricity to power its data centres, according to the document. Ok, when we're considering how much water a person uses, are we going to include the water used to grow the almonds you ate? Because agriculture is going to dwarf anything that data centers use.

[deleted]