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> Despite this, those in power refuse any environmentally aware energy policy nor water policy. Can you tell me how much water a data center uses? If you have

by Permit 1mo ago

> Despite this, those in power refuse any environmentally aware energy policy nor water policy. Can you tell me how much water a data center uses? If you have strong opinion on the construction of data centers I hope you can answer this basic question about data centers. (Many opposed to them cannot)

estearum 1mo ago
Assuming that it's surprisingly little and without pollution concerns, then an acceptable and enforceable policy should be a very simple request, no?
- Permit 1mo ago
  Yes I agree.
cogman10 1mo ago
Depends on the cooling system, but around 1 to 9L per kwh. [1] A lot, but not all, of these datacenters are using evaporative cooling, which is what kicks their water usage so high. So a 40MW datacenter will consume around 4 million liters of water per day if it is evaporatively cooled. [1] https://www.fwpcoa.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=859275&item_id=130961 https://www.fwpcoa.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=859275...
- quickthrowman 1mo ago
  As a comparison, one acre of alfalfa growing year round in California uses about 5*325000=1,625,000 gallons of water a year for four harvests, 4400 gallons of water per day per acre. There’s around a million acres of alfalfa grown in California for a total water usage of 1,625,000*1,000,000=1.625×10¹² gallons (or 5 million acre-feet) per year. 365 million gallons of water per year for one data center is 1000 acre feet of water. California’s alfalfa crop uses as much water as 5,000 of these data centers.
  - quentindemetz 1mo ago
    That the only nation which sent man on the moon uses acre-feet as a unit of volume blows my mind
    - stockresearcher 1mo ago
      Oh sure, I can help. 1000 acre feet is approximately 40 hectare meters. Or, you know, about 1.2 billion liters. Over on this side of the ocean, we’ve got freshwater lakes larger than entire European countries. There’s a lake over here, it has an island on it. That island has a lake, which has an island in it. And there’s a lake on that island. We need units of measurement that represent large things. If you don’t, that’s ok.
      - rjrjrjrj 1mo ago
        1.2 billion litres = 1200 megalitres = 1.2 gigalitres Works well in places that need to represent things large and small. Europe, Canada, Australia, and pretty much everywhere else. But enjoy your cubic furlongs and tablespoons.
  - _DeadFred_ 1mo ago
    Do Alfalfa growers traditionally use limited (and funded at large expense by the local community) municipal water hookups to grow their crops? Are alfalfa growers asking for new water hookup permits to access these resources? Because DCs are, and that is the concern local communities have. Not random comparative statistics whose purpose seems to be to take valid local community concerns and pretend they're just a joke. How much do alfa growers in California add to my water bill? How much will new municipal water hookups by new data centers impact my water bill? One is a valid concern. One is just a BS attempt to discredit the valid concern. Because that is how this shady industry operates. On BS. On manipulation. And they wonder why they are more and more disliked.
    - cogman10 1mo ago
      It is a sort of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. The reason these DC use so much water is because it uses less electricity to evaporatively cool than it takes to cool with a heat pump. You are trading water scarcity for energy scarcity. In my personal opinion, the right tradeoff is more electricity. Also IMO, these DCs should be required to build out solar + battery + wind offset plants which supply their energy either directly or indirectly by selling to the grid operator at a discounted rate. If you want 40MW of power, you need to deploy 40MW of solar (not peak, but yearly average output) and a 400MWh battery plus all the grid hookups required. The end result for residence should be lower energy bills, not higher bills.

by Permit 1mo ago

estearum 1mo ago

Assuming that it's surprisingly little and without pollution concerns, then an acceptable and enforceable policy should be a very simple request, no?

Permit 1mo ago
Yes I agree.

cogman10 1mo ago

Depends on the cooling system, but around 1 to 9L per kwh. [1] A lot, but not all, of these datacenters are using evaporative cooling, which is what kicks their water usage so high. So a 40MW datacenter will consume around 4 million liters of water per day if it is evaporatively cooled. [1] https://www.fwpcoa.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=859275&item_id=130961 https://www.fwpcoa.org/content.aspx?page_id=5&club_id=859275...

quickthrowman 1mo ago
As a comparison, one acre of alfalfa growing year round in California uses about 5*325000=1,625,000 gallons of water a year for four harvests, 4400 gallons of water per day per acre. There’s around a million acres of alfalfa grown in California for a total water usage of 1,625,000*1,000,000=1.625×10¹² gallons (or 5 million acre-feet) per year. 365 million gallons of water per year for one data center is 1000 acre feet of water. California’s alfalfa crop uses as much water as 5,000 of these data centers.
- quentindemetz 1mo ago
  That the only nation which sent man on the moon uses acre-feet as a unit of volume blows my mind
  - stockresearcher 1mo ago
    Oh sure, I can help. 1000 acre feet is approximately 40 hectare meters. Or, you know, about 1.2 billion liters. Over on this side of the ocean, we’ve got freshwater lakes larger than entire European countries. There’s a lake over here, it has an island on it. That island has a lake, which has an island in it. And there’s a lake on that island. We need units of measurement that represent large things. If you don’t, that’s ok.
    - rjrjrjrj 1mo ago
      1.2 billion litres = 1200 megalitres = 1.2 gigalitres Works well in places that need to represent things large and small. Europe, Canada, Australia, and pretty much everywhere else. But enjoy your cubic furlongs and tablespoons.
- _DeadFred_ 1mo ago
  Do Alfalfa growers traditionally use limited (and funded at large expense by the local community) municipal water hookups to grow their crops? Are alfalfa growers asking for new water hookup permits to access these resources? Because DCs are, and that is the concern local communities have. Not random comparative statistics whose purpose seems to be to take valid local community concerns and pretend they're just a joke. How much do alfa growers in California add to my water bill? How much will new municipal water hookups by new data centers impact my water bill? One is a valid concern. One is just a BS attempt to discredit the valid concern. Because that is how this shady industry operates. On BS. On manipulation. And they wonder why they are more and more disliked.
  - cogman10 1mo ago
    It is a sort of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. The reason these DC use so much water is because it uses less electricity to evaporatively cool than it takes to cool with a heat pump. You are trading water scarcity for energy scarcity. In my personal opinion, the right tradeoff is more electricity. Also IMO, these DCs should be required to build out solar + battery + wind offset plants which supply their energy either directly or indirectly by selling to the grid operator at a discounted rate. If you want 40MW of power, you need to deploy 40MW of solar (not peak, but yearly average output) and a 400MWh battery plus all the grid hookups required. The end result for residence should be lower energy bills, not higher bills.