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by shamwow_ 1031 days ago
It's not insane. Open markets work for every other type of commodity, and there is little reason to think it won't work for water usage as well.

Also data centers don't use water for cooling. They primarily use air cooling, and last time i checked air conditioning doesn't require a constant supply of water.
2 comments
korse 1031 days ago
Your home AC, sure. However... pretty much every facility with a physical plant (hospitals, universities, data centers, skyscrapers, factories etc.) uses cooling towers to dump heat from their internal systems into the environment.

Nearly all cooling towers require a constant water supply. Some water is recycled, but it is not anywhere near a closed loop system.

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happymellon 1031 days ago
> Also data centers don't use water for cooling.

Some do, some don't.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/27/thames_water_to_datac...

> Not all datacenters use water for cooling, but of those that do, a large facility might use anywhere between 1 million and 5 million gallons of water a day

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