[goda90]

We should never assume any aquifer can be used up lightly, whether Utah or in a rainforest. Droughts are going to become more common, and not only does a lower water table impact other human activities, but also plants that have deep roots and anything relying on natural springs that might dry up faster if we're wasting a bunch on evaporative cooling.

Demanding closed loop cooling is just as important as demanding self built renewable power for new data centers.

[whimsicalism]

Just friggin tax carbon. The notion that we pick disfavored new industries and require them to bear the brunt of our renewable buildout is absurd and effectively a tax on the 'new'.

I see no reason we should grandfather in 'heritage carbon emitters' when we are emitting way more than we ought to.

[danaris]

Water isn't carbon.

Leaving aside whether a carbon tax would be an effective solution to CO2 (I genuinely don't know), there's no reason to suspect it would be an effective solution to our water crisis, particularly given the huge growth in solar recently.

Datacenters don't need cooling because they're burning gas for their power. They need cooling because computation produces heat. Even if they were feeding as much clean solar power back into the grid as they were using, we would still need to find a solution to their voracious thirst.

[whimsicalism]

My comment was in reply to the self-built renewable bit at the very end.

In terms of water, I also think that water is severely underpriced for a scarce resource.

[danaris]

The problem with trying to price it is that literally everyone needs it to live. Access to clean drinking water is, and must be, a human right.

We need to find a way to limit its use for profit, while still allowing actual humans who need it to get as much of it as they need.

[HDThoreaun]

Georgists have figured this out long ago. To make a regressive tax progressive all you need to do is turn the revenue gained from it into a flat per capita tax rebate. Also residential water use is tiny. Maybe your water bill goes up $400 a year but that doesnt matter when you get a $1000 rebate because most of the tax is paid by agriculture.

[whimsicalism]

Ultimately 'profit' is the result of transitive dependencies on things people want fulfill what they are willing to pay for. But I agree that we should subsidize residential water and electricity usage. But the base price before subsidy should reflect the externalities.

[goda90]

Pricing water properly includes figuring out how much someone is drawing directly from wells on private property.