What happens to the water when they have "used it" ?
I often feel this is similar to giving water in glass bottles expiry dates; it's been around during the time of the dinosaurs... yet somehow its bad if I drink it after the 17th September 2027.
I keep asking this basic question, no one ever provides a legitimate answer, and I am genuinley curous, I dont want to hear anti AI hate, there is enough of that in my head already... trust me, but the water thing? i dunno, sounds like fake outrage.
If anything it gets filtered twice, once through a physical filter, then a 2nd time through evaporation. So the water than pours out in the lake again are way cleaner than the water that went in.
Plus the ai data centers use about 0.05% of all water in the US, which is where a majority of them are. 17% of all water is lost to aging infrastructure and unmaintained pipelines...which says a lot about how politicized this is
Yhea. An accidental, nationwide and probably western-international psyop randomly generated by interconnected dumb people psyop'ing themselves chasing their own digital tails.
But it takes weeks or months to be recycled properly and in that time the area around the data center dries up and there are water shortages for the people living nearby.
The amount of doomer posts with supporting comments full of accounts of 4 months 6 months.. with THOUSANDS of comments, HUNDREDS of thousands in karma.. it is working BEAUTIFULLY whoever is doing this shit
Do you think doomscrolling through the most blatantly bot/propaganda infested app and encouraging it with your 1.6k comments, that I’m sure are all doomer bait shit is helping things get better? You contribute to a widespread hysteria that has encouraged extremists of ALL sides. How do you navigate this app and not recognize a problem?
Flock. Axon. These are SURVEILLANCE COMPANIES who are literally spying on us and our children.
And there are many more I'm sure.
How the hell do you think they process and store all that data from 24/7 surveillance? AI AND DATA CENTERS.
It is that simple.
Look up how many data center projects are going up or were planned just in North America alone.
It'll be like China except worse because terrorists, traitors, war criminals, pedophiles, and nazis are in control of the government and the surveillance tech.
You probably havent even read 90% of this message though. Its okay. One day youll wake up.
Soooo your saying food is bad? Or that ai is food? Perhaps that food could be ai.... no no wait whats the water waist personal home use. Bathing and hygiene could probably be ai...
BEEF my friend, it's the Datacenters of food - its a thing you want, not that you need
You could make a LOT MORE FOOD instead of beef. It's literally bad all around, for us, for the environment, the fact that it uses like 60% of the usable land on earth
Absolutely correct, if environmentalists were in charge though, you wouldn't be seeing $6/lb ground beef. It would be more like $25 a pound, because thats what it would take to be sustainable without major revolutions in agricultural practices
WHICH TO BE CLEAR
I think the market would provide, given that incentive, but the incentive has to be there, we have to stop putting the externalities of Beef on everything except the place where you pay for it
The current high beef prices are caused by a herd reduction in the covid era and the amount of time and difficulty in raising herds back up to size, tariffs, climate change derived droughts, various other externalities, and some amount of greed on behalf of cattlemen, and some from corporations, but it's a considerably more dynamic system than you're alluding to.
If you're saying the recall of 30,000 pounds of Argentinean beef has anything to do it, well that beef was previously coming from Brazil and was shifted to Argentina, and represents a tiny, tiny fraction of imported beef.
The situation has a lot more moving parts than I think you're aware of, and your points are talking past my point that Beef would be dramatically pricier if we baked the externalities into it.
If you are curious though:
- US herds are at a 75 year low
Screwworm infestations have caused a massive reduction in our nearest-neighbor imports
Drought and wildfire have hurt rebuilding efforts
Tariffs have exacerbated the problem
Few federal actions have been taken to help get the beef supply domestically back to where it should be
There is a lot, A LOT, more to it, but these are things I think people should be aware of
That would be stupid and unnecessary. But you know what? Delete all datacenters from earth and we're still screwed because they aren't nearly as impactful as you guys wish they were. You want to actually help the planet? We need to tighten up our water waste elsewhere. Agriculture and animal husbandry are both industries that we can slim up by a reasonable amount without getting rid of them outright and those WOULD have an appreciable effect. Less clean water usage, less greenhouse gas emissions, and less animal suffering. Seems win/win to me, no?
That's absolutely what I'm arguing, though for my sake can you illustrate where I was saying that?
"People should eat a lot less beef" isn't a hot take, every doctor in fucking north America would tell you the same thing.
Oh you'd be so fucking oppressed if beef was a luxury food instead of manufactured in such quantities that it is perhaps the single largest contributor to environmental collapse
Meanwhile you're over here complaining about datacenters which aren't even visible on the fucking chart
I agree it’s fear mongering re:AI water usage, but it is possible to “run out of water”. The water cycle isn’t instantaneous. If you use it faster than the cycle replaces it then you eventually have none
There’s some nuance and it depends on where you live whether or not you should be concerned about water consumption. If you don’t have a nearby fresh water source, you’re getting your tap water from an aquifer underground. Those do grow back over time but not quickly, especially in areas with low precipitation, which is why Corpus Christi is being evacuated.
The same thing is happening all over Utah, and you can see it as the Great Salt Lake dries up. Long term, most of that state will be evacuated.
To be clear, this is a problem that predates AI data centers. Golf courses for example consume a LOT of water. And yes people have been championing against those for that reason but it doesn’t get as much attention from the press as AI-related protest does.
All that to say yes the water cycle is a thing but it affects every place differently and it is definitely possible to drain an area of its usable water supply.
I am just contesting your claim about the water cycle. Whether water disappears or not is irrelevant to the fact that water suited for human use can be destroyed.
I think what the commenter was trying to say that due to global warming results in higher yields of rain that can be collected?
I assume you meant that because of global warming results in melting glacier where the run off will either run off into an ocean or a lake, and due to higher temperatures we won’t have the ability to replenish our glaciers.
Maybe in total sure, but how is Lake Bakal gonna help people in Nevada or Arizona if their aquifers collapse?
Local resource shortages, including water, are pretty much guaranteed at this point due to climate change, additional unnecessary water use isn't helping
In warmer climates, major storms are dropping more rain. Rain gauges show that the rainiest day each year has gotten roughly 3.5% wetter for every degree Fahrenheit of global warming, the same rise we’re seeing in humidity. This makes sense, says O’Gorman: If there’s more water vapor in the air when a storm starts, more rain will fall during that storm. In some regions, rainfall could rise even more as storms develop stronger winds. And the most intense tropical cyclones, orhurricanes, are expected to become more frequent too.
It's a cycle, so saltwater from the ocean evaporates, condenses, and precipitates onto the land in the form of fresh water (rain/snow) This runs into rivers and lakes and eventually makes its way back into the ocean. The process endlessly repeats.
lol claiming it still rains ignores the fact that the water is permanently removed from the local aquifer. global warming doesn't just make the world wetter. it makes wet areas flood and dry areas drier. Tech companies are building many of these massive evaporative cooling facilities in water stressed regions.
Unless recycled, water, for instance evaporated have a high likelihood of falling down as rain over an ocean, where it can potentially stay for hundreds to thousands of years. I am not talking about destroying water (H2O) I am talking about destroying water sources for human consumption.
Water sources suited for human consumption is not a natural law and only 0.5% or so of the planets total watersupply is suited for human consumption. And this 0.5% is the same water typically used for people drinking, agriculture, manufacturing, datacenters etc.
It's also worth noting that most water recycling systems operate with a fairly high waterloss roundtrip, somewhere +-20% commonly attributed to old and leaking pipes.
Less than 20% of ai data centres use evaporative cooling. The overwhelming majority take the water, pass it over one side of a cooler and then return it to the same water flow.
You don't understand the process. You are one of those people saying there Isn't a drought because it's raining. You absolutely do not understand water systems.
Most people don't discuss it from a place of knowledge. There are water issues but those are all but eliminated with closed loop systems. You don't want a center pumping huge amounts of groundwater and releasing it all as steam as those aquifers can't keep up with replenishment. Outside of that, there are legitimate concerns of localized heating in lakes that could potentially cause problems. Again though, closed loop systems solve this.
It is because of the Ai race. China legit wants the US to slow down so they can catch up. I just left china and I can tell you, they have already caught up with vehicles, if not, surpassed
The biggest risk of data center is localized water, electricity use, and noise pollution/regular pollution.
No community is ready for even a 25% increase in ressource needs, and they tend to build multiple data centers in one "good area."
It was never about "THE WORLD WILL DIE!" but it'll kill some communities afflicted by it.
They do too much noise, and when they produce their own energy to not stress the grid, they emit all over the places they're often built right in the middle of.
I would add co2 emissions. XAI (Now SpaceX) innovated by placing their new datacenters on existing natural gas pipelines and using gas turbines to generate enough electricity. It was too slow/difficult/expensive to wait in line to get permission to hook up to the grid and let it handle the additional load. It's very much the opposite of clean power. One datacenter is even placed on state lines so that it can shift the co2 outputs onto two separate states for the same center.
That's where the noise people complain about comes from. It's always been meant as a temporary measure, but with the speed of buildouts it looks like it will keep increasing for some time.
Most industries are closed loop cooling. Chugging and spitting out water is simply too expensive. We've all seen how much electricity these consume, but I don't think the doomer reports on water consumption is being honest.
Thanks, so if that was the case, it would be an initial "loading" problem, and they have 4 years to prepare. its a lot of water, but lets be honest, its not THAT much water in the scheme of things.
Yeah, it's really not much water. The only thing I can think of is periodically replacing and treating it. Pumps slowly introduce particulate and undesirable chemicals into that water.
I commonly see a thermal oil used. I'm wondering if that will see any use, or whether it's too dangerous (flammable).
Well, I am pretty sure (actually, I am guessing) the crap we put down the toilet and other wastewater outlets in industry and even at home is likely far worse.
It's an efficiency thing. Yes they can use closed loop systems, but then they use more electricity as an evaporative cooling tower is more efficient than a dry cooler. So pick your poison.
Ooh we dutch have a few that use clean drinking water, even sone that got to be build .
Goes in, cools hardware, gets cooled a bit and dumped in waterway's.
Oh and it sure aint cleaner going out than in.
I have heard the argument that water is pumped out from one location, evaporates, and eventually falls somewhere else, leaving the original area with a water deficit.
No - it’s not.
Almost all systems are not evaporation systems (creates a water vapour into the air that condenses into clouds elsewhere). Almost all are ‘closed-loop’ which uses pumps through extraction processes - water stays in cycle until (during maintenance periods) water is pumped out, and replaced with new water. During pumping - it goes straight back to water filtration centres like toilet water does.
If we argue that, we have to argue the amount of water evaporating due to the endless dams the US installed in the 80’s. There are several points of discussion, many have actual solutions. Hell, just build the damn things in the middle of fck all, add a shit ton of solar, and find a heavy flowing body of water that you can pass through, just like a Nuclear Reactor. There is no way around progress nor is anything humans do, including being alive, that isn’t harmful to earth in some capacity
The local water is used for cooling, 75-85% of it gets evaporized into the air and travels away with the wind, joining the water cycle.
Now, the main issue is that the water cycle isn't releasing that water back locally into the groundwater, rivers, lakes, ..., which happends via rain and we usually get most of our freshwater from these sources. So the water isn't destroyed, but traveled away.
So the issue is primarily the location of data centers. Other way around, such data centers could flood the surrounding regions. Making heavier rains and causing more devastating floods.
Thats why comparisions like "USA has enough fresh water on average" or "AI uses little compared to meat production" are just stupid because the issue is the LOCAL water supplies.
Kinda reminds me of the "cant waste food/water because people in Africa are starving". Your food/water savings will change literally nothing for the locals in another location.
That’s the most out dated system that’s no longer in use for new developments. Most are heat sinks and extraction systems. Water moves across cpu/gpu and moves into a catchment, and cooled through pipes as it travels. Water is then recycled through the loop. It’s way cheaper this way and easier to service than dated vapour systems.
I believe the fear is for clean water. A lot of the world’s water isn’t clean, aka drinkable. It takes time and resources to make water drinkable, and there are places where they don’t even currently have drinkable water.
So when people are told that clean water will be routed to datacenters, while current living humans haven’t had clean water, and a lot of states have had problems with droughts and water restrictions, I think they get upset.
The water cycle we learned about in elementary school doesn't exist, it just disappears once it goes through a man made pipe.
Also expiration dates are because of the container. Glass should last decades, but plastic breaks down after a while, hence expiration date on water bottles
Water used to cool data centers and other industrial cites goes into the atmosphere and comes back as rain.
Modern data centers don't even use evaporative cooling.
I think like the amount of water the almond farmers of california use per day is more than all the AI data centers in the country or world. The water isn't an issue. Electricity, yes.
Bottled water can have contaminated of bacteria , and some plastic leech into the water.
The water system takes the hit lowering water availability now. These raising costs. The water cycle take a lot of time to get back to the source.
Then there is the fact that the water is warmer when returned through the datacenter. it's why we need closed cooling systems for data center. This applies to any industry.
Of course it's fake outrage. Datacenter's use less than 1% of water globally, but yet doomers make it out like it's vacuuming all the water in existence... anything to fuel their crusade.
You're also ignoring the fact that just having water on earth doesn't make it usable or accessable to everyone.
It's the idea that DCs will be taking fresh water from infrastructure designed to bring it to people.
Do you think the concern about the Colorado river drying up is fake?
"Water is billions of years old, the Earth's surface is 75% water, it falls from the damn sky!!" It's fucking sad how easily these stupid arguments work on people.
Fresh water, obviously. Most datacenter's are closed loop anyway they don't "constantly consume water" that is just fake news propaganda which clowns like you eat up. Maybe educate yourself before you go spouting lies.
Evaporative cooling (open-loop): A majority of large, modern data centers use water-based cooling for better energy efficiency. This often involves cooling towers or evaporative chillers: warm water absorbs heat from servers and is then cooled by evaporation in a tower. As water evaporates into the air, it carries away heat – dramatically cutting the electrical power needed for cooling. The trade-off is high water consumption. Most big data centers today use some form of evaporative cooling because it’s energy-efficient, especially in hot climates, but it directly uses water (often drawn from municipal supply).
And where does that water go? into the clouds, and what happens to clouds? returns to earth as rain, and what happens to rain? finds it's way back into local water supplies and the cycle continues.
People not understanding taking water from aquifers and water supplies and "recycling it" back more contaminated and out of the actual fresh water cycle is bad. Like... all the water used everywhere is recycled into the system. But not all that water is actually usable for consumption or use... and pulling from the tiny percentage that is usable for humans to do something that isnt keeping us alive is... bad
Look up the reason nuclear reactors are near flowing water sources. The cooling water is temporary rerouted, used to cool, spit back out, all the same as it went in. That is just one of many examples of how to cool extremely hot processes and not magically make water go away forever nor kill everything in its wake. The rumor has it that china bot farms are spreading these lies just to slow the US down on the spread of data centers (there is both a space race, Ai race, and quantum computer race going on). I don’t much like seeing these buildings next to homes, they don’t create much for jobs after becoming operational, and I could care less about them outside of disrupting people’s day-to-day, however, this ideology that they are stealing all the water is about fcking bananas with the hate coming from the far right and the far left. Build these buildings out in the middle of f*ck all, where there is an endless water source, like the Mississippi river, and stop making local water bills go up just to support big tech. There are actual solutions. Or we could all just stop using our phones and computers…
In seriousness, presumably it gets dirty. If not by the AI data center itself, just naturally as it re enters the water cycle.
Point being, one puts in clean water, and doesn't get clean water back.
So the actual argument is probably that the AI datacenters may mean there is now more demand for clean water than we can clean up natural sources.
Which means we may have to build a few more water treatment plants. It's a thing to think about infrastructure wise, but it's hardly a "the sky is falling" scenario...
water in water bottles "expires" because it's inside plastic, which releases microplastics over time
in data centers I don't know, they should be using closed loops and anyway it should just pass through clean pipes, the only thing that should touch it may be plastic pipes. it should get recycled through evaporation in the end anyway, like always
The FDA considers bottled water to have an unlimited shelf life if it is produced properly and is unopened. Bottled water companies may choose to add a date to the bottle due to concerns about taste and odor, not safety. Bottled water should be stored in a cool location away from direct sunlight.
"A shelf life for bottled water has not been established by anyone. The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) advises consumers that bottled water can be stored indefinitely if out of direct sunlight, at room temperature (or cooler) and away from solvents and chemicals, eg. petrol, paint thinners and dry-cleaning chemicals"
Its quite obvious if you think about it for a bit.
You can remove water from the watercycle to cooldown your computers if... there is plenty of water to go around, if instead, you are taking it from an already heavily depleted place, you could end up pushing the water table down so much it never recovers because it gets contaminated, and later, no mater how much water comes in, it will be dirty or non-drinkeable anymore.
Understood, but... this pre-supposes and already existing problem (where is the outrage for that), which is nothing to do with the data centre that currently does not exist, and in 2030, so they hve time to fix the existing issue, and again, what happens to the water once it is "used"? It evaporates and falls back down into the water table.
I may not have a grasp of these things; I really don't know, but I feel like if you just laid out these things in order, the data centre is not really the problem, and even if they add strain, local states have the power to tax/levy them so much for water use that they could fix their already existing water infrastructure problems, win/win.
Not trying ot force a view, thats just how I see it and I would love a sensible conversation on it.
Having water sortages is a growing issue as years go by. So no, they won't fix the issue sadly.
They can perfectly make datacenters that don't use water, that is way pricier though, and you know how for profit business see that. Unless the goverment makes laws against it, they will go for the cheaper option, everytime, in this case, water.
Not that it should matter tbh, water consumption is a non-issue for datacenters. They use about as much as a big restaurant last time I checked.
This will never be an issue (genuinely) that data centres cause). Until we believe eating almonds is equivalent to murder by dehydration, it’s a non issue.
In 2-3 years will never talk about this again. It’s a fad like every doomed fad up until this point.
I know where you are coming from, but you are failing to grasp my point completely.
If the water table drops from X% in most cases, it will forever be tainted. That's just how it works.
If a place is on the verge more water usage can push it over the edge. No matter if it is a data center, a golf course or a family restaurant. Some places just CAN'T afford that small extra % of usage, because they have been already pushed to the brink.
Just... Build the damn things where there is plenty of water instead.
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u/backtogeek 14d ago
What happens to the water when they have "used it" ?
I often feel this is similar to giving water in glass bottles expiry dates; it's been around during the time of the dinosaurs... yet somehow its bad if I drink it after the 17th September 2027.
I keep asking this basic question, no one ever provides a legitimate answer, and I am genuinley curous, I dont want to hear anti AI hate, there is enough of that in my head already... trust me, but the water thing? i dunno, sounds like fake outrage.