[ninkendo]

I wonder what fallacy you’re going to use to justify GPU-heavy data centers using zero water: are you going to take the “they’re closed loop” path, and conveniently ignore that they need to be continually topped off, and that effectively makes them open loop anyway (or that they heat exchange with a separate loop that is evaporated?) Or maybe you’ll just say “sure the water evaporates, but it’ll rain down somewhere so it’s still zero” ignoring that the water is taken from a place it’s needed (a municipality) to a place it’s not (the ocean)? Or maybe you’ll point to some extremely rare designs that don’t continually consume water, and pretend they’re representative of all of them (when the number of truly closed loop data centers effectively rounds to zero.)

I eagerly await your response.

[falcojr]

Not who you responded to, but water usage only matters in areas where water is a scarce resource, yet I live next to one of the great lakes and constantly hear about how we should reject proposed data centers because of the water usage. The argument makes no sense around here. The usage would be a drop in the bucket compared to already existing industrial uses of water, so it's clear that people just parrot arguments that they don't even understand.

[lostlogin]

There has been some talk recently about the impact on water of closed loop systems - as it turns out they get a flush before first use and that contamination from that has been a problem.

[phil21]

As I get older I realize how the news works.

You are talking about a single incident that has been reported 500 times by different organizations.

And that single instance still hasn’t actually been traced back to the datacenter in question. Could have come upstream of that for all we know now.

[consensus1]

Well you'll need to keep waiting because I never made such a claim and therefore I have no need to justify it.

[phil21]

Water usage in this context is a rounding error on a rounding error on top of a rounding error when it comes to corn production for ethanol.

Anyone bringing it up does not actually care about the water usage. It’s just a politically easy topic to get traction with. If anyone starts off their anti-datacenter screed with this, it instantly outs them as someone you can ignore as unserious person on the topic.

Plenty of other legitimate reasons to be anti-datacenter but this isn’t one of them.

[ninkendo]

I’m against corn production for ethanol too: that AI datacenters aren’t as bad as one of the worst ideas our country has ever had, isn’t much praise.

You know what instantly outs someone as unserious on the topic for me? When they give an unqualified “none of that is true” when someone talks about water use. I agree discussion should carry the nuance, but this conversation started with none of it.

A modern 100MW scale datacenter uses about as much water as a 5-10k population municipality. And provides about as many jobs as a medium-sized wal-mart. Whether that’s a lot to you or not certainly depends on where the proposed datacenter is being built. But it does nobody any good to simply say “nuh uh, you’re wrong” when someone talks about the water use. Nor does bringing up any number of other high-water-using industrial sites that people also wouldn’t want in their back yard.

[phil21]

The fact there is not the social media and political outrage there is on stuff that is literally 10-1000x the water usage is what outs folks as being unserious on the topic. Collectively speaking, people do not give a shit about water usage at all for any reason.

It’s like private jets. If you talk about PJ use in the first 10 minutes about your diatribe about climate change I already know you give zero care about co2 production and only want to either hate rich folks for valid but unrelated reasons, or are an entirely unserious person.

Both are focusing on a mathematically immaterial number when it comes to the supposed problem they say they care about. It they actually cared, they would be talking about things that matter and can move the needle if they “win”.

I welcome high water use stuff in my back yard because my region has plenty of water, plus I firmly believe in the fact that a society cannot have wealth without industry. Datacenters, steel production, whatever. Bring it on.

Are there specific bad projects that should not happen due to local water concerns? Absolutely! But that is not the discussion anyone is having. Datacenter water usage as an industry is a total non issue and is an increasingly immediate tell that someone has no clue what they speak of.