It's a fun contrast to see how AI apologists kept saying that criticism of data center water use is overblown, while the actual water utility companies loudly point out that data centers are a problem to the water supply.
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It's a fun contrast to see how AI apologists kept saying that criticism of data center water use is overblown, while the actual water utility companies loudly point out that data centers are a problem to the water supply.
@hzulla there’d be enough water if all the humans stop drinking it all !
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It's a fun contrast to see how AI apologists kept saying that criticism of data center water use is overblown, while the actual water utility companies loudly point out that data centers are a problem to the water supply.
@hzulla I knew that take had to be bollocks when people gave it shortly after the news dropping on an LLM Data center consuming water it didn't pay for.
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It's a fun contrast to see how AI apologists kept saying that criticism of data center water use is overblown, while the actual water utility companies loudly point out that data centers are a problem to the water supply.
> In May, the company told MPs that some of these datacentres were requesting up to 3m litres of water a day, equivalent to the peak water demand of 3,500 homes.
Wtf is UK doing with water? 860 liters per day per home is a crazy figure!
@hzulla -
> In May, the company told MPs that some of these datacentres were requesting up to 3m litres of water a day, equivalent to the peak water demand of 3,500 homes.
Wtf is UK doing with water? 860 liters per day per home is a crazy figure!
@hzulla -
It's a fun contrast to see how AI apologists kept saying that criticism of data center water use is overblown, while the actual water utility companies loudly point out that data centers are a problem to the water supply.
@hzulla yeah, the stackoverflow guy(I forget his name) was also claiming the same thing right here on Mastodon
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@hzulla It's an interesting numbers game. Because you can calcultae the water usage in a way that it looks somewhat small, but a datacenter uses water _extremely locally_ which overloads supply
I always assumed datacentres would circulate their supply of coolant, which would probably double the power requirements but largely obviate their need for fresh water. Maybe they did, some thirty years ago when I visited a couple that were completely air-cooled and no where near bodies of water to dump their waste heat (and water) into?
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There is a sign in the Prora Museum that mentions briefly how the planners and engineers of the Prora Nazi Holiday Resort knew that contemporary infrastructure technology was incapable to serve the planned massive building complex with the required services (fresh water, sewage, food, waste disposal, heating) if it were ever completed as depicted by Kraft durch Freude propaganda.
They knew the project will fail the moment actual people were to use it at scale.
But the mere fact of building and showing off a construction site was a propaganda success for leadership demonstrating will power.
Nothing to learn from that for current events, I guess.
We successfully fought off a data center here in Menomonie, rural Wisconsin.
The truth is uglier than the public propaganda: the data centers are being built on spec. The corporations are already starting to deal with each other, finding they've overbuilt.
There will be some Big Losers in the not too distant future.
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It's a fun contrast to see how AI apologists kept saying that criticism of data center water use is overblown, while the actual water utility companies loudly point out that data centers are a problem to the water supply.
@hzulla boohoo your giant datacenter doesnt have enough water. im more worried about how there are countries where people are dying of dehydration.
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I always assumed datacentres would circulate their supply of coolant, which would probably double the power requirements but largely obviate their need for fresh water. Maybe they did, some thirty years ago when I visited a couple that were completely air-cooled and no where near bodies of water to dump their waste heat (and water) into?
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It's a fun contrast to see how AI apologists kept saying that criticism of data center water use is overblown, while the actual water utility companies loudly point out that data centers are a problem to the water supply.
@hzulla come on, what do these "experts" know anyway, we must not be left behind! /s
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It's a fun contrast to see how AI apologists kept saying that criticism of data center water use is overblown, while the actual water utility companies loudly point out that data centers are a problem to the water supply.
if you bother to read the document in question
https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/164766/html/you learn two things:
The UK seems to be the worst NIMBY place on the planet, as no new resovoirs are being built
which leads to disasters, like the claim that a new cancer hospital can't be built due to a shortage of waterThe shortfall due to datacenters is a projection, that assumes the UK will treble DC capacity, and that on the hottest days there will be shortfall that is not that big a deal, if there was no NIMBYism
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