• kunaltyagi@programming.dev
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    20 hours ago

    Majority of water use in US is for agriculture and meat production. A significant portion of the agriculture is for producing animal feed like Alfa Alfa in water stressed regions.

    Data centers use water but they are a symptom of the broken water allocation in USA

  • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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    20 hours ago

    Ai Data Centers’

    No. Water-cooled Data Centers did this.

    Call out the transgressors for their transgression and stop the dilution and transferrence of the real problem.

    Cool your shit with air.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      21 hours ago

      what they convince people to do is “not use water or electricity at certain times”. this is pretty much the same thing oil/gas companies telling people to reduce thier emissions.

  • CPMSP@midwest.social
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    1 day ago

    It never ceases to amaze me how people justify their rent seeking and profiteering at the expense of literally everyone else.

    I hope when the bubble pops the sentence for boiling the planet and killing billions is similar to the situation that brought us there.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      21 hours ago

      this time AI isnt rent seeking/profiteering, they are hoping to have those. but they just wan to continue the grift taking it from shareholders.

  • dan@upvote.au
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    23 hours ago

    Doesn’t the water evaporate and become part of the water cycle? Water can’t just disappear? Maybe I’m missing something.

    It would be good to cut down water usage… Not just for data centers but also for things like lawns and golf courses.

    • its_me_xiphos@beehaw.org
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      15 hours ago

      Let’s go to the Dalles in lovely Oregon. There is a Google data center there that draws water from the public supplies. It draws so much in a day, that at times the need for water in the whole community outstrips the ability of infrastructure to supply water. So people in the area see their water slow or cease altogether. The water is drawn so fast and in such amounts, wells dry up as the water table drops.

      Water does eventually evaporate or get discharged from said data center, but its not like adding it in is an instantaneous event. It also doesn’t reenter the same system. Like picking up flour and trying to drop it back in the bag. Some ends up on your counter.

      The data center in the Dalles is one hell of a story, too, for reason beyond that.

      https://www.opb.org/article/2026/01/15/as-googles-water-demands-grow-the-dalles-aims-to-pull-more-from-mount-hood-forest/

      • M1nds3nd@lemmy.ca
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        2 hours ago

        Why can’t they pull water from the Columbia river? The buildings are less than 100 yards from the water.

    • Fifrok@discuss.tchncs.de
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      22 hours ago

      Yes, the hydrological cycle is global, of course none of the water just disappears. What you’re missing is that the usage is local, data servers use mains water most of the time.

      Mains water must come from somewhere, the local area has limited processing capabilities, and heavy industrial consumption severely depletes local groundwater reserves faster than natural rainfall can ever replenish them, forcing nearby communities to bear both the ecological and financial costs of a utility network that was almost never designed to handle such strain.

    • bryndos@fedia.io
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      23 hours ago

      If their wastewater is clean and goes back into the usable water supply straight away then that’s fine. But if it flushes into drains or evaporates then you might have to wait a while for it to come back as fresh rain - and land in the right places to fill up the reservoirs.

      It might matter how they’re designed/regulated and whether they keep the water clean and usable - which I assume costs more of other resources.

      • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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        21 hours ago

        they also pollute water at some point, and the water comes out hotter, and then the datacenter needs to consume water from the area to cool down thier servers. they dont give any water back.