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How does the US use water?

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Re: How does the US use water?

#171

Post by rconti »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #137

I'm from the Netherlands. The last few years there have been issues with ground water levels dropping and a lack of rainfall. To the point where water companies are asking consumers to reduce their water use for e.g. irrigating their gardens, shower less long, etc. Of course, the notion of a water shortage in a country where two of the largest rivers in Europe empty in the North Sea and that keeps about a third of it…

The reason we have water "issues" in California is due to a complicated system of water rights, where more "senior" and upstream water rights-holders can take as much as they want.

Of course, if we nullified that system, we'd have a new problem; lack of agriculture.

Re: How does the US use water?

#172

Post by skybrian »

arp242 wrote: post #57

> We can also think about it in economic terms. The 2.5 billion gallons per day required to grow cotton in the US created about six billion pounds of cotton in 2023, worth around $4.5 billion. Data centers, by contrast, are critical infrastructure for technology companies worth many trillions of dollars. Anthropic alone, just one of many AI companies, is already making $5 billion dollars every year selling access to…

We shouldn’t take these numbers blindly, but even if you think the value that Anthropic is providing is inflated by 10x due to it being a fad, that’s still 100x more value than cotton.

Market prices can be wrong, but I think it goes too far to completely disregard them and cut back on AI rather than cotton in places where there’s relatively little water. You can buy cotton from somewhere that has more water, rather than growing it in a desert.

Re: How does the US use water?

#173

Post by recallingmemory »

pfdietz wrote: post #147
Aurornis wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a great example of using large numbers without context to scare people. Say “6.4 billion gallons” in isolation and people will be horrified. Put it in context relative to something like alfalfa farming and it doesn’t even appear on the same scale.

I understand it takes a gallon of water to grow one almond in California.

That's right, and it takes ~600 gallons of water to make one hamburger.

1: https://watercalculator.org/footprint/what-is-the-water-foot...

2: https://www.almonds.com/why-almonds/growing-good/water-wise

Re: How does the US use water?

#174

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

dyauspitr wrote: post #121
recallingmemory wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, 1.6 trillion gallons of water from the Colorado river goes into irrigation for alfalfa[1]. Google's total water consumption across all data centers in 2023 was 6.4 billion gallons[2]. People are sounding the alarm about water usage in AI data centers while ignoring the real unsustainable industries like animal agriculture. 1: https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/04/research-colorado-river-w... 2: https://www.datacent…

Solar powered desalination seems like a no brainer in places like California.

Desalination can be ecologically disastrous. You have to put all that salt somewhere (and it's a lot).

Re: How does the US use water?

#175

Post by rrrrrrrrrrrryan »

FredPret wrote: post #78
Manuel_D wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like saying fossil fuels don't actually pollute or emit greenhouse cases, because we're just X joules away from sequestering it back from the atmosphere. Desalination, and pumping water over thousands of miles is extremely expensive. Sure, you're not wrong, but the values of X and Y are uneconomical.

I don't think they're uneconomical. Fresh, clean water is astonishingly cheap; of course people are using it to grow almonds and alfalfa in the desert. Just charge people what the water is worth and they'll stop, or water companies will be able to afford much more treatment capacity. You have a point about sequestering CO2 molecules, but: a) I'm sure this will get cheaper over time, just like every other technology b…

People grow almonds in the desert specifically because they have access to artificially cheap water. In the U.S. lots of land comes with water rights: e.g. if a river or creek passes through your land you can use x% of the water to irregate your crops. Some of these water rights date back to the 1800s and they're locked in.

The water rights can be clawed back a couple ways: if they're unused for X years, or in times of drought.

There's an exception for droughts though: farmers with trees (that would die if unwatered) still get priority, while people that grow crops that replenish each season (like wheat) don't.

So this leads to perverse incentives where these farmers need to find a way to use ALL of their water, every year, or they'll lose access to their absurd water rights from the 1800s, and they need to use it on trees so it doesn't get clawed back during a multi year drought.

So, they end up planting the most water-hungry trees they can grow on their land (almonds), then they get to sell them to the world at artificially low prices because the water that was used to grow them is almost free.

Re: How does the US use water?

#176

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

aidenn0 wrote: post #162

I'm somewhat astonished at the per-capita household use of water per day. I assume it must mostly be for watering lawns? We have a swimming pool that leaks (we were quoted $125k to fix it since the deck will need replacing, and with interest rates being what they are, borrowing to fix it would be rather painful), and we use only 51gal/person/day at our home. I estimate that if fixing the pool would save another 10.

Toilets (1.5 - 2.5 g per flush), then showers (2.5 g per minute), then clothes washer (about 15 - 20 g per load) are the big 3.

Re: How does the US use water?

#177

Post by kjkjadksj »

adrr wrote: post #136
kjkjadksj wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many golf courses in arid regions are on greywater.

That could be used as potable water again. Orange county,CA injects treated waste water back into the aquifer then pumps back out for water. https://www.ocwd.com/gwrs

Orange county CA also irrigates its golf courses with its greywater.

Re: How does the US use water?

#178

Post by nucleardog »

rconti wrote: post #168
morleytj wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawns use such an incredible amount of water, particularly people maintaining them in deserts, like in Arizona and parts of California. It boggles my mind that people go out of their way to put so much effort and resources just into having grass in front of their house that they mostly don't use.

Honestly, if you're maintaining a lawn in places that don't get year-round rain, you need to water it. I grew up in Seattle and it never occurred to me that there were places where you didn't need to water a lawn.

> Honestly, if you're maintaining a lawn in places that don't get year-round rain, you need to water it.

Only if you want to grow non-native species and always have it looking like a magazine cover.

My house is sitting in a five acre clearing covered in whatever flora decides to grow there, with minimal "curation" (tend to avoid cutting beautiful native flowers to encourage them to spread, do try and deal with removing things like poison ivy).

When it rains, everything greens up, grows quickly, needs lots of mowing. If it doesn't rain for a few weeks while the sun cooks it, some things will go a bit brown and lifeless. Then the next rain comes and it all perks right back up. When winter comes, it all sits under the snow for months and months and when the snow melts it picks right back up where it left off.

Most of these plants were here before we were and they'll be here after. They don't need my help.

Re: How does the US use water?

#179

Post by aidenn0 »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #176
aidenn0 wrote: post #162

I'm somewhat astonished at the per-capita household use of water per day. I assume it must mostly be for watering lawns? We have a swimming pool that leaks (we were quoted $125k to fix it since the deck will need replacing, and with interest rates being what they are, borrowing to fix it would be rather painful), and we use only 51gal/person/day at our home. I estimate that if fixing the pool would save another 10.

Toilets (1.5 - 2.5 g per flush), then showers (2.5 g per minute), then clothes washer (about 15 - 20 g per load) are the big 3.

If you do 1 load of laundry per person per day (which is absurd), then the clothes washer cant' be even 1/4 of the over 80 gallons per person per day TFA claims.

Re: How does the US use water?

#180

Post by bongodongobob »

adrr wrote: post #19
newfocogi wrote: post #8

I found a lot of value in this article. Out of frustration with people who are alarmist over how much water a datacenter "consumes" compared to households, I've probably erred too often towards: 'People sometimes invoke the idea that water moves through a cycle and never really gets destroyed, in order to suggest that we don’t need to be concerned at all about water use. But while water may not get destroyed, it can…

Biggest alarmist is movement against Nestle using water for bottled water in California. They don’t even use as much as an average golf course. How much water is wasted on golf courses in these arid regions? Or growing water intensive crops like alfalfa that isn’t even directly used to feed people.

The issue with Nestle is that they are paying pennies on the dollar compared to the public because "muh job creation" or something to that effect.
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