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AI uses less water than the public thinks

californiawaterblog.com

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Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#361

Post by kstrauser »

cybercatgurrl wrote: post #326
kstrauser wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People have no reality of how cheaply priced industrial water is in this country. Driving between SF and LA, you see a gazillion signs from water leeches complaining that the government won't give them yet more nearly-free water. No, I don't want to go without fresh crops. But yes, I absolutely believe that, say, growing almonds in basically a desert should be a financially expensive operation, and if that makes th…

exactly! LA is peak capitalism over the environment. the amount of ecosystems destroyed by Los Angeles’s insatiable thirst for water is impressive

These aren't in LA.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#363

Post by YetAnotherNick »

taejavu wrote: post #336
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cows drinking isn't the major pie anyways. Cow feeding on Alfalfa which has been grown and irrigated with huge amount of water is the problem.

The vast majority of cattle are raised in a pasture and eat grass, even those labeled “grain fed”. Grain fed just means they spend some time (e.g. 30 days) in a feed lot. I hadn’t heard about cows eating alfalfa though, where is that happening? Wouldn’t it be more valuable to sell it to people instead of using it as feed?

Grass takes lots of water to grow.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#364

Post by jlebar »

thephyber wrote: post #289
jlebar wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of the issue is not systematically using a pricing structure that charges disproportionately more for usage above high thresholds. We don't do this for gasoline (in most countries), even though it is also vital for life. And yet people can still drive, afford to eat food grown with fertilizers, use plastic, and so on. Turns out markets are pretty good when you leave them alone. But when they're not left alone…

Gasoline is absolutely rationed when it becomes scarce after having been plentiful. When hurricanes come to South Florida, the well off migrate North to wait out the storm while the poor suffer the dangerous conditions. Part of this is due to the price spikes of gasoline in the local market as supplies dwindle due to fewer truck shipments and refineries shutting down for the storm. Water is similar. Both water rights…

> Gasoline is absolutely rationed when it becomes scarce after having been plentiful.

Sure, but OP is advocating that we should "systematically [use] a pricing structure that charges disproportionately more for usage above high thresholds." They're not arguing that this is something to be applied only in emergencies.

Similarly in your post, you use the need to ration gas after a hurricane to argue that we should ration water all the time. This does not follow.

> Both water rights and water utilities are gamed by people who have resources. The people that are hurt are usually poor utilities bill payers, rural residents who are the first to lose service when wells dry up, and anyone who thinks they have water rights until an upstream user exhausts their expected supply.

The logical extension of your argument here is that the world would be better if we subsidized gasoline for "poor utilities bill payers" and "rural residents".

But why gasoline and water specifically? Why not also healthcare, food, childcare, and other necessities?

Then consider, if we have a budget of $X per family to subsidize necessities, surely the government is not best suited to decide how to split up those dollars between water, gas, healthcare, food, and childcare? There's no right answer universally, some people need food more than they need gas, and vice versa. Surely an individual family would be better equipped to decide for themselves?

We have now invented "giving money to poor people instead of subsidizing demand", which I wholeheartedly support.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#365

Post by jlebar »

da_chicken wrote: post #288
jlebar wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of the issue is not systematically using a pricing structure that charges disproportionately more for usage above high thresholds. We don't do this for gasoline (in most countries), even though it is also vital for life. And yet people can still drive, afford to eat food grown with fertilizers, use plastic, and so on. Turns out markets are pretty good when you leave them alone. But when they're not left alone…

> We don't do this for gasoline No, but commercial trucks use diesel, which carries about 25% higher taxes per gallon. And vehicle registration on semi-trailer trucks is significantly higher as well. They pay, on average, between $25,000 and $30,000 in taxes and fees each year. > Turns out markets are pretty good when you leave them alone. No, they aren't. They're ridiculously bad when you leave them alone because so…

> Free markets are pretty good at finding good prices. Markets that are left alone do not remain free.

OK but the market intervention being discussed here does not create a free(er) market. Its intent and effect is the literal opposite.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#366

Post by jlebar »

thrance wrote: post #307
jlebar wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of the issue is not systematically using a pricing structure that charges disproportionately more for usage above high thresholds. We don't do this for gasoline (in most countries), even though it is also vital for life. And yet people can still drive, afford to eat food grown with fertilizers, use plastic, and so on. Turns out markets are pretty good when you leave them alone. But when they're not left alone…

Gasoline is heavily regulated and subsidized. Leaving the oil market alone resulted in Standard Oil, and we obviously don't want that again.

I am not saying that there should be no regulations on monopolies. We are discussing a very specific market intervention, namely the proposal to

> systematically [use] a pricing structure that charges disproportionately more for usage above high thresholds.

This is what I'm arguing is a bad idea, by using gasoline as an example.

If you want to argue that imposing this pricing structure systematically is good because it would help prevent a bad monopoly like Standard Oil, you'd need to explain (a) how this market intervention would prevent monopolies and (b) how it's a "better" way (according to however we decide to measure "better") to prevent monopolies than the alternatives. I don't see how this is true, though.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#367

Post by casefields »

anubistheta wrote: post #319
gensym wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, it's weird to me how fixated both sides are on water. People against data centers overestimate water usage, but people who think we should build as many as we can, as fast as we can seem the think that "actually they don't use that much water" somehow negates the more real issues with them.

Because it is an easy concrete way to stir up reactionary sentiment. The real issues are debatable but complex. But the common folk can all visualize a gallon of water.

Not only that they are trying the same playbook as what was done to nuclear. A new technology comes and activists try to instill fear so as to murder the tech in its baby crib.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#368

Post by ssl-3 »

anubistheta wrote: post #323
mrinterweb wrote: post #9

If data center water use is such a concern, why not require that data centers invest in closed-loop cooling systems? By closed-loop, I'm talking about re-condensing evaporated water and allowing the water to cool. Cooling the water would be more expensive in hotter environments, but still achievable. These data centers seem to have wild amounts of money for investment, why not just mandate conservation requirements?

We should just charge a fair price for water. Something that covers capital, operating, and decommissioning costs. No need to pass specific regulations or add legal complexity. It would solve itself. Imagine any other service saying "Oh no, we have too much demand, we need to make it illegal." Just put out bonds, and build up capacity.

For places with plenty of water, that makes sense. Capacity can be increased.

For places that don't have plenty of water, that becomes trickier: Capacity is finite.

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#369

Post by xigoi »

yongjik wrote: post #215
dylan604 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The farming water usage already exists. The data centers do not. Adding more on top of what farming is using is not going to help. We can prevent the data centers, so that's where the push back is. I'd be on board if for every data center a farm gave up the amount of water to use in that data center. Instead of carbon offsets, we'll let them purchase water offsets. Of course that's not a serious answer.

> The farming water usage already exists. The data centers do not. Adding more on top of what farming is using is not going to help. We can prevent the data centers, so that's where the push back is. Well, to me, this sounds basically like "Jeff Bezos already exists, this school does not. Increasing the government budget to build a school here is not going to help our finance, so that's where we will push back." (I d…

How does building a data center, which benefits a single company, compare to building a school, which benefits the general public?

Re: AI uses less water than the public thinks

#370

Post by deaux »

dylan604 wrote: post #157
tptacek wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of the counterexample is a huge component of US agriculture, massively dwarfing data centers in water use, doesn't serve the core needs proposed by the top comment.

The farming water usage already exists. The data centers do not. Adding more on top of what farming is using is not going to help. We can prevent the data centers, so that's where the push back is. I'd be on board if for every data center a farm gave up the amount of water to use in that data center. Instead of carbon offsets, we'll let them purchase water offsets. Of course that's not a serious answer.

Private jets already exists. Your new EV still doesn't. Adding more emissions on top of what private jets are using is not going to help. We can prevent the new EVs.

Scale matters, and you're completely ignoring it. A single hamburger takes about 2,500 liters of water to produce. The US eats a lot of them and produces a lot of them.

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