NunuvYabizness
746
28
6
https://www.ceres.org/resources/reports/water-behind-the-watts-the-hidden-risk-of-powering-data-centers
A report by non-profit environment group Ceres shows that water use to generate the electricity to power data centers is an even bigger cause for alarm.
Half of all US data centers are in seven states: Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois, Georgia, Ohio, and Arizona. Many of these states are already being hit with drought and water shortages even though they use water to generate electricity to the tune of 3.4 trillion gallons daily, or 12x what Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C. use daily combined.
The report "Water Behind The Watts" can be downloaded using links from the Ceres page shown above.
Fyffer
Just wait until they can't generate enough electricity for everyone anymore. It won't be the data centers are are cut off first.
Dasnekones
No it does the fuck not? Sure, it takes some water but why do you think USA is in this "drought" in the first place? Putting aside climate change (which we are also responsible for), its the farmers that pissed away all the water.
USA uses more water on golf tracks than data centers by factors of magnitude. Whoever is telling you this bullshit is straight up lying to your face for their political benefit.
"Dont look over here at the legit problem. Be mad at those guys instead!"
TheobromineAddict
Somebody please explain to me why cooling water cannot be recirculated through a cooling tower and reused. Also how does cooling water become "polluted" after traveling through a heat exchanger. Polluted with what? Why does water vanish or become unusable after one trip through a data center?
Dasnekones
Throwing some ballpark figures around, datacenter cooling, if using evaporated cooling might evaporate around 85% of the water it uses for cooling and puts the last 25% back in the system.
The electricity they use, if assuming it comes from thermoelectric sources, uses about 3% of the water it draws and puts the other 97% back in the system.
Ballpark figures is that a data center uses more water for electricity than cooling at around 1 to 10 ratio (not accounting for what is put back).
TheUnnamedPoet
We all knew AI was going to destroy us, we just figured it'd be cool killer robots like in Terminator, not a waterless hellscape like Tank Girl
digitreal
Are you telling me the kangaroos were all just a tribe of furries?
swedeonamoose
At least it means we can all start dressing like teens on a rave while driving around in tanks.
uberAIDSwastakenwtf
In other news, water is wet. Or would be, if we had any water after data centers use it all up…..
Bonana
Fun theory, actually, liquid water might have two different forms. HighDensity and LowDensity. So Water may, in fact, be wet.
Bonana
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167732222004603
NootyJooty
Just wait for the AI bros to come in here and tell you that DC's clean every drop of water and that each datacenter personally told them they will ADD water to the system, lol
ps238principal
"Ackshewaly, water isn't destroyed when it cools data centers, so it isn't really lost!"
Great, go get me a glass of water that's been used to cool a data center. I'll wait.
Clockworkdancerobot
"But it's a closed system!!" was the cry. Yeah. for the earlier loop, but the second part that dumps the heat into the atmosphere? no.
imgurmage
I wish this article actually talked about what power plants are "using water for electricity generation". The vague way this article is written comes across as "hydro-electric dams can't generate electricity due to drought" and they're saying it's the fault of the data centers instead of climate change.
Dasnekones
Thermoelectric power plants use quite a lot of water but 97% of it is not consumed and returned back. In other words, this study is most likely full of shit.
TheobromineAddict
The whole uproar about data centers wastage of water is missing a lot of explanation of "how and why". If water is being used for cooling semiconductors, run the heated water through cooling towers and reuse it. And water running through a heat exchanger should not become too polluted to reuse.
Also, as you said, if hydro electric dams are running out if water, it's because of climate change, not data centers.
I've not seen any good explanation of how data centers are causing water to vanish.
4etherling
They are redirecting a lot of water for their purposes that will not be available for other uses. That alone is annoying.
Dasnekones
"a lot of water" is doing a lot of heavy lifting considering if i gave you a graph of the total water usage you could probably not point it out without a magnifying glass.
Is "a lot of water" much for a single person? Yes. Is it much for the rest of the water use? No, its practically a statistical anomaly.
TheobromineAddict
"… redirecting.. " and "… not available for other uses …" So you, like many others, assume that water magically vanishes once it enters a data center? Or you think hydroelectric dams open the water gates wider to generate more electricity for data centers?
Felberin
As I've understood it it's evaporative cooling, so the water goes up to sky in.. well not smoke but you know vapor. And while there should be those cooling towers, they cost money and the sole reason why evaporative cooling is used, is to make data centers cheaper. And I bet big concrete tower is more expensive than paying your friends to downplay the issue and just suck up ground water until there's none left.
Felberin
Which, I presume, is the most dangerous issue, before datacenters, most countries were consuming groundwater much faster rate than it can replenish, causing lot of issues like sink holes and.. well lack of drinkable ground water. With datacenters using lot more, even if it's restored in circulation it takes good while to become usable again. Also once rivers start running dry cooling power generation like nuclear (and I assume coal) is impossible too..