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US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

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Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#81

Post by KennyBlanken »

zug_zug wrote: post #67
KennyBlanken wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what led you to believe that the water is being put back into the ground "simply" or otherwise but maybe you shouldn't be acting like it's a non-issue when you clearly don't understand the problem. DCs are pumping the water through evaporative cooling towers because the latent heat of vaporizaton means there's a huge amount of heat sucked up in the phase change from liquid to vapor. None of the water is…

No I'm saying that water used in mining likely goes back into the ground.

Then maybe you should have said that the first time.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#82

Post by everdrive »

wraptile wrote: post #56
thevinter wrote: post #13

Irrespective of how this number is calculated, whether is blue/green water etc here is some comparison data for context, since I personally think that hearing big numbers without any point of reference is pointless. Annual withdrawals (2015) - Thermoelectric power: ~48.5 trillion gal - Irrigation: ~43.1 trillion gal - Public supply: ~14.2 trillion gal - Self-supplied industrial: ~5.4 trillion gal - Aquaculture: ~2.76…

> Livestock: ~730 billion gal This is a good illustration how cursed the datacenter topic has become when people go out of their minds on computer cooling while continuing to eat meat which lets be perfectly clear - is mostly for entertainment purposes. I had someone berate me for defending datacenter water use and their last post was literally a cheese burger.

There would need to be some articulable upside to data centers, though. Even if we agree there should be less livestock, I don't see how that has any bearing on the data centers topic.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#83

Post by letmevoteplease »

shimman wrote: post #29
paxys wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almond farming - ~1.5 trillion gal (1.1 gal per almond)

I value almonds more than LLM slop.

I think most of the people who act like this are secretly using ChatGPT like a Republican on Grindr.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#84

Post by Ajedi32 »

zug_zug wrote: post #65
wraptile wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Livestock: ~730 billion gal This is a good illustration how cursed the datacenter topic has become when people go out of their minds on computer cooling while continuing to eat meat which lets be perfectly clear - is mostly for entertainment purposes. I had someone berate me for defending datacenter water use and their last post was literally a cheese burger.

Well the thing with the livestock is that you have to give a cow water. Datacenters do not need water . It is just slightly cheaper for them than cooling with electricity. Datacenters should be required by law to pay to build adequate power generation and infrastructure to pay for their consumption, and ideally in a way where it isn't a ghastly eyesore.

You don't need a law to force people to pay for resources they consume; basic economics already ensures that. If there are externalities not already accounted for by that (increased demand for water/electricity driving up costs for others, noise, "eyesores", etc.) you could pass laws to ensure those costs are paid by the responsible party but that's not a datacenter-specific issue.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#85

Post by doikor »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #62
zug_zug wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good context, but aren't many of your examples simply putting that water back into the ground? Also, where the water is taken from is the key issue. If this was ocean water nobody would care, but if it's Reston, VA that's a local issue.

I'm not sure what led you to believe that the water is being put back into the ground "simply" or otherwise but maybe you shouldn't be acting like it's a non-issue when you clearly don't understand the problem. DCs are pumping the water through evaporative cooling towers because the latent heat of vaporizaton means there's a huge amount of heat sucked up in the phase change from liquid to vapor. None of the water is…

The water that evaporates during cooling does rain down somewhere else at some point.

It isn’t like the water magically disappears. It just gets turned into moisture in the air.

Though that can be very far away depriving the local environment or other industry of the water. Extra bad if that water is pumped up ground water.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#86

Post by zug_zug »

jp191919 wrote: post #74
zug_zug wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the thing with the livestock is that you have to give a cow water. Datacenters do not need water . It is just slightly cheaper for them than cooling with electricity. Datacenters should be required by law to pay to build adequate power generation and infrastructure to pay for their consumption, and ideally in a way where it isn't a ghastly eyesore.

We do not need meat.

Datacenters have a readily available substitute to water if they just make less profit.

I'm not giving up my meat so that datacenters can use it for cooling, if that's what you're suggesting.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#87

Post by wraptile »

zug_zug wrote: post #65
wraptile wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Livestock: ~730 billion gal This is a good illustration how cursed the datacenter topic has become when people go out of their minds on computer cooling while continuing to eat meat which lets be perfectly clear - is mostly for entertainment purposes. I had someone berate me for defending datacenter water use and their last post was literally a cheese burger.

Well the thing with the livestock is that you have to give a cow water. Datacenters do not need water . It is just slightly cheaper for them than cooling with electricity. Datacenters should be required by law to pay to build adequate power generation and infrastructure to pay for their consumption, and ideally in a way where it isn't a ghastly eyesore.

> Well the thing with the livestock is that you have to give a cow water.

you don't _need_ a cow though

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#88

Post by deaton »

tester756 wrote: post #49
shimman wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to play these stupid games how much water did you think was used to make the concrete for the data centers? Or how much water was used to cool the steel? How much water did all the workers drink while building the data center? How much water did they use to build all those GPUs? Almonds provide a real utility for humans: food. LLM slop has done nothing but made the public miserable to help prop up the del…

>Almonds provide a real utility for humans: food. Let's do not act as if there wasnt other food, a lot of it actually. Meanwhile LLMs aren't that easy to replace, they're biggest human achievement up to date.

Are they? What has gotten better because of LLMs?

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#89

Post by raincole »

zug_zug wrote: post #86
jp191919 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do not need meat.

Datacenters have a readily available substitute to water if they just make less profit. I'm not giving up my meat so that datacenters can use it for cooling, if that's what you're suggesting.

So? Many people are not willing to give up their cloud services either?

And there are other kinds of meat that cost less water to produce. I don't think someone who isn't willing to give up beef for chicken is at a higher moral ground than someone who wants cheap tokens.

Re: US data centers tripled annual water consumption to 17B gallons

#90

Post by theultdev »

dgellow wrote: post #28
myrmidon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. Specifically: If you are anti-datacenter, then the water argument might look appealing to you , but its NOT a good argument, and it makes not only look you like an innumerate idiot, it also negatively impacts adjacent environmental movements/concerns. So don't push it.

It’s more nuanced, the water consumption can be a real local problem. The evaporated water doesn’t necessarily come back to the original source, and if the water supply was already stressed you’re adding even more pressure to it. You have to look about the actual details, like all arguments about resource consumption

You'd have to look locally at individual datacenter projects then and not be against all of them.

If it's really the case that a local municipality grants a new datacenter to be built that already has a stressed water supply, the people in the area should complain, and if nothing is done then we can be mad at just that ONE datacenter/company. Not the entire industry.

But I just don't see that happening. Noone is going without water because of datacenters. Noone is going without water other than people in California who get there's stolen from farms. That's a real issue, not a hypothetical.

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