Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
source-material.org
Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
1–10 of 242 posts
Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
#2Is this water even “used” in the same sense that water is used for bathing or agriculture?
Where does the water go? If they simply take in cold water and release hot water, that water is still available for other uses.
Or do data centers use evaporative cooling just like power plants?
Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
#3Water use is a pretty close proxy for power use which is a pretty close proxy for how much computation is happening.
I can totally see why a company wants to keep this info secret.
Competitors would really like to know.
Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
#4Is data center water use not closed loop? If not, why?
Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
#5Is this water even “used” in the same sense that water is used for bathing or agriculture? Where does the water go? If they simply take in cold water and release hot water, that water is still available for other uses. Or do data centers use evaporative cooling just like power plants?
[deleted]
Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
#6Is this water even “used” in the same sense that water is used for bathing or agriculture? Where does the water go? If they simply take in cold water and release hot water, that water is still available for other uses. Or do data centers use evaporative cooling just like power plants?
> Or do data centers use evaporative cooling just like power plants?
Yes. Not always, but evaporative cooling is much more energy efficient than heat exchange to outside air.
That said, stories about data center water use are a distraction from much bigger water consumers like golf courses and agriculture (e.g. to ship alfalfa to the middle east).
Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
#7Why do companies actively lie in their advertising about being eco-friendly, instead of just keeping a low profile?
Is it because we tend to focus only on current events and quickly forget their past track record? Indeed, if people soon forget the lies, the risk is minimal.
Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
#8[dupe] Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45710025
Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
#9Is this water even “used” in the same sense that water is used for bathing or agriculture? Where does the water go? If they simply take in cold water and release hot water, that water is still available for other uses. Or do data centers use evaporative cooling just like power plants?
Even if it's evaporative cooling, couldn't the water vapor just be... condensed back into water?
Re: Amazon strategised about keeping water use secret
#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.