. According to analysis by the Guardian, two-thirds of planned datacentres in the US are in drought-stricken areas. The larger centres need up to 5m gallons of water a day for cooling, equivalent to the average usage of 50,000 people. It is unclear what the plan is and whose needs will take priority between AI, agriculture and everyone else.
“People are reporting bill spikes,” [Erin]Brockovich says, reading an email from someone who says their monthly water bill went from $22 (£17) to more than $350 (£265). The threat of these centres is about more than money – it feels existential. “How will the water use disrupt the balance of nature? People are asking: “What will happen to us?”
First of all, there needs to be laws that utility bills for residences don’t change when a data center comes into their area. Their rate should remain the exactly same. Data Centers should be able to pay for their own resource use, without expecting the surrounding area to supplement it.
Can somebody explain to me like i’m three, why people always seem to focus on the water they use and not the absolutely out of whack power consumption of these buildings?
Correct me if i’m wrong, but water is never really “lost” whereas power is still a finite and polluting resource so long we still have to burn op liquified or gassified dinosaurs to keep up with demand.
Not a data center expert, but I believe that they use evaporative cooling towers for heat dissipation. If so, the water is in fact lost to the atmosphere.
I’m also a lot more concerned about energy use than water. Golf courses use 30x more water than data centers. Residential lawns, arguably the most useless crop in the world, use 9 billion gallons of water every day. Orders of magnitude more water goes into growing corn for livestock feed and biofuels.
The immediate issue is how much electricity AI consumes and where that electricity comes from, as that has the larger impact on public health and the environment. xAI relies on gas turbines that violate environmental rules and pollute the surrounding communities. The surge in demand for electricity is driving the cost higher, further increasing the cost of living for a lot of families.
The ELI3 you requested: All the hubub around water is diverting attention away from bigger issues, which the makes the AI companies and the rich people happy.
That said, I don’t think the water issue should be dismissed either, especially since the water demand is projected to increase fourfold by 2028. They’re both legitimate concerns. I just think energy generation is the one with the greater consequences and should be getting more of the attention.
Metrics sourced from here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andrew-couillard_every-ai-data-center-in-america-uses-less-activity-7465076822012235777-QONC
Water isn’t lost per say, but overusing a water source will deplete it, altering the environment around with no way of knowing how severe the effects will be.
Also, the rejected water can be contaminated (especially with the US relaxing the environment laws)
Energy use is also an issue, but the impact is a lot less severe than water use.
TIL Erin Brockovich is still at it.
She had a little detour into some dark places, but managed to recover!
Rewatched the movie not so long ago and looked her up and was happy to see she was doing a lot better.
Funny statistic but relevant:
Data Centers use about 0.06% of the USAs total Water per year.
Watering golf courses in total uses about 0.5 percent.
Not saying Data centers aren’t a problem, but… Water is not the main issue we should be focusing on with them.
Well, it is a problem for the local residents in the low income areas where the data centers are being placed. Not only is there less water for them now, but the data centers also pollutes the air and makes it life threatening for these people to breathe.
I believe it was Musks datacenters for Grok that were particularly bad with air pollution and while I forget the exact numbers of people affected, it was enough that it was concerning.
It makes total sense to me that Erin Brockovich is getting involved in this shit because it’s literally a repeat of the case that made her famous.
And also, water shortages have other causes, much more systemic, that I feel the datacenter scapegoat is a convenient distraction from.
You can cool chips with air, you can cool them with the sea or with non drinkable water. If they really get built in places where water is scarce, the problem is why the hell are they incentivized for that?
Water is plentiful and there should be no shortage of it. Where it is lacking it is either an environmental problem (desert areas should not be supposed to sustain cities) or a public infrastructure problem.
Are there fishes inside data center water reservoirs because there are in golf course ponds. You can even fish there.
Ah yes, golf. The game mostly played by rich white men. The courses mostly owned by rich white men. It sure tracks.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of golf courses either though. Pretentious bullshit sport that takes up way too much space.
That is indeed relevant, I didn’t know that, and it makes me angrier about golf courses. But something to consider is this is 0.06% new water usage that is for building something most people are actively against.
I’m not saying give up on golf courses, but data centers is where the most ire is right now, so that additional water usage out of the blue (heh) is very worth bringing up when many people are worried about the future of access to water.
Wait until you learn Arizona has one of the most golf courses in the US.
I would definitely say we should give up on fucking golf courses
You a golfer? I know a few, and yeah, one of the reasons it’s harder to go after golf courses imho is there are some regular folks who genuinely like to do it
I was born in, and raised near, Pinehurst. I can tell you from a lifetime of experience, there are no golfers that are simultaneously normal and good people. They’re either abnormal or evil or both. Or they’re alcoholics.
I know of a handful of regular people who golf regularly, but it is true that they’re all some kind of jerk. I just assumed it was a coincidence.
I really wish people would stop focusing on the water use of these data centers. The far scarier thing is the amount of electricity they typically use. Many are planned to use direct onsite fossil fuel generators which I’d about as bad as it can get.
Sure but there isn’t a massive boom of golf courses being built and hey don’t tend to poison the water downstream.
actually, they do tend to poison the water downstream through use of pesticides etc.
Also, Data centers evaporate water to cool stuff, so idk why it would poison anything “downstream”?
Averaging water use over the entire US is basically meaningless, water use in Michigan is vastly different from water use in Texas.
but it’s averaged for both, so idk what you mean
And it’s meaningless for both. Neither of them mean anything.
*already. Data centers are just getting started with many planned, golf courses have a head start but probably less growth potential lol
Shhh…you want an angry mob after you?!
Uh… She meant to say that AI requires blood sacrifices of fully hydrated babies, and once the AI ingests the blood water it’s gone forever. We need to get our pitch forks and put an end to the demonic sacrifices! We don’t need no hallucinations, plagiarized slop and climate-change-causing demons in our computers! Ban AI and kill it before it can lay it’s eggs!
Okay, you should be good now. Just nod along, and never ever admit to having used AI, or even think about informing people there are positives to using it or there are worse things to do than use it.
Some people finding AI the technology useful doesn’t justify this massive all-in rollout of data centers. Sure it’s their money, but they’re using all our resources to build stuff that no one asked for, and actively making life shittier for many many people.
It’s even mentioned in the article
This isn’t a story about AI, she says. “That genie is out of the bottle: it’s here, it’s an effective tool, you can use it or not,” Brockovich says matter-of-factly. This is about the massive structures being built to house the vast computing facilities AI requires. These datacentres, she says, stretch over “hundreds and hundreds of acres”. In May, Utah gave approval to a centre twice the size of Manhattan.
Surprised to see her in the news again.
still fighting the good fight with gusto!
