Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How does the US use water?

construction-physics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 200 posts

Re: How does the US use water?

#21

Post by NegativeLatency »

password4321 wrote: post #10
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…

I would like to know how much water is taken by a datacenter vs. the same size space of apartments. I can see why it could be considered a bad choice for communities long term if a datacenter takes more.

Apples and oranges, you can compare the water usage, but places for people to live aren't in the same category as datacenters.

Re: How does the US use water?

#22

Post by mjmahone17 »

dfxm12 wrote: post #18
lxe wrote: post #13

> Average per-capita domestic water use in the US is 82 gallons per day. By comparison, German homes use around 33 gallons per person per day, UK homes use around 37 gallons, and French homes use around 39 gallons. I want to know way more information about these figures... like, are there significant outliers? Drastically different usage profiles?

Maybe there are regs on appliances in Europe, or maybe the prices are high enough that the market demands efficient appliances (like gas/petrol). Whenever I stay in an airbnb in europe, whether it is a fancy place or a cheap apartment, all the appliances look similarly small and water efficient. The washing machine, flushing, hot water heaters, etc. can all add up. To wit, there is no uniform water efficiency require…

It’s probably the lawns and yards, primarily. Including things like pools: in Arizona there’s about one pool for every 13 people. The US averages much larger lot sizes, and those yards consume water.

I’m not saying the US isn’t profligate in other areas like appliances or taking longer showers, but in most the country there’s so much land, such cheap water and very little regulation preventing you from using however much water that you want. Some of the land even comes with a guaranteed quantity of water for irrigation guaranteed, at little to no cost.

Re: How does the US use water?

#23

Post by azemetre »

password4321 wrote: post #10
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…

I would like to know how much water is taken by a datacenter vs. the same size space of apartments. I can see why it could be considered a bad choice for communities long term if a datacenter takes more.

The government in The Dalles, Oregon were suing local newspapers that were questioning Google's water usage in the city:

https://www.rcfp.org/dalles-google-oregonian-settlement/

Apparently Google uses nearly 30% of the city's water supply:

https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2022/12/googles-wa...

I highly doubt any apartment block comes close to taking 30% of a city's water supply.

Re: How does the US use water?

#24

Post by sellmesoap »

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.

There are a lot of historical reasons for people to be angry at Nestle, aside from their impact on water.

Re: How does the US use water?

#25

Post by xyst »

With the rise in climate change and _collective inaction_. We are in a trajectory for mass extinction [1].

With the second AI gold rush coming to a near abrupt stop, political climates worsening, billionaires continuing to loot the collective populace through their pawns in the kakistocracy (USA) and kleptocracy (Russia). We are absolutely cooked.

What’s the point anymore? What are we even solving? Being a _good_ person is no longer worth any value. Just exploit and climb over each other like crabs in barrel.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/09/1...

Re: How does the US use water?

#26

Post by recallingmemory »

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.

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.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/google-emissions-...

Re: How does the US use water?

#27

Post by Aurornis »

azemetre wrote: post #23
password4321 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to know how much water is taken by a datacenter vs. the same size space of apartments. I can see why it could be considered a bad choice for communities long term if a datacenter takes more.

The government in The Dalles, Oregon were suing local newspapers that were questioning Google's water usage in the city: https://www.rcfp.org/dalles-google-oregonian-settlement/ Apparently Google uses nearly 30% of the city's water supply: https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2022/12/googles-wa... I highly doubt any apartment block comes close to taking 30% of a city's water supply.

I’ve driven through The Dalles. It’s a very small town. A search shows a population of 15,000 and declining annually.

It’s also right on a big river. The article you linked said that Google was spending nearly $30 million to improve the city’s water infrastructure so there are no problems.

Talking about this in terms of percentages of a small town’s water supply while ignoring the fact that the city is literally on a giant river and Google is paying for the water infrastructure is misleading.

Re: How does the US use water?

#28

Post by gonzalohm »

lxe wrote: post #13

> Average per-capita domestic water use in the US is 82 gallons per day. By comparison, German homes use around 33 gallons per person per day, UK homes use around 37 gallons, and French homes use around 39 gallons. I want to know way more information about these figures... like, are there significant outliers? Drastically different usage profiles?

One thing that shocks me as an immigrant from Europe to the US is toilets. I have not seen a single one that has the two buttons, one for pee and one for the other stuff.

Every time I use the toilet it uses 1.6 gallons. 6 liters...

I think in my home country more than 90% of home toilets are the "low water usage one" (with 3 and 6 liters buttons)

And that's only the start, I noticed that people just don't care about water usage over here. People take water from wells with little oversight. In my home country you need a vast amount of bureaucracy to be allowed to take water from aquifers

Re: How does the US use water?

#29

Post by jeffbee »

azemetre wrote: post #23
password4321 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like to know how much water is taken by a datacenter vs. the same size space of apartments. I can see why it could be considered a bad choice for communities long term if a datacenter takes more.

The government in The Dalles, Oregon were suing local newspapers that were questioning Google's water usage in the city: https://www.rcfp.org/dalles-google-oregonian-settlement/ Apparently Google uses nearly 30% of the city's water supply: https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2022/12/googles-wa... I highly doubt any apartment block comes close to taking 30% of a city's water supply.

That's because it's a large industry and nobody lives there. This pattern appears all over the place. The paper mills in the pacific northwest consume large multiples of the water used by their little towns.

Re: How does the US use water?

#30

Post by Aurornis »

recallingmemory wrote: post #26
adrr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

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.

Post reply on HN