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TFA: > Many data centres use water-based systems to cool the plant with towers evaporating the heat, like a huge perspiration system, which means that the wate

TFA: > Many data centres use water-based systems to cool the plant with towers evaporating the heat, like a huge perspiration system, which means that the water is lost. > All of these companies have schemes to put water back into nature using projects that help river flow, capture rainwater, recharge aquifers and modify dams. They have all pledged to become “water positive” by 2030: returning more than they consume. > But where are they putting back the water? Quite often it’s not in the same place it was taken out, which can be in areas of “water stress”. It's not about whether or not the water is gone for good after cooling. It's about allocation of resources. The water cooling ChatGPT servers right now is water not delivered to households or the larger ecosystem. Data centers are, in effect, in competition with the rest of us for who gets to use the water right now. >> ChatGPT is useful. This article is not. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html please: > Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

jiggawatts 2y ago
Please don’t be that person quoting the rules when you don’t understand the arguments. This hit piece from someone whose job is directly endangered by LLMs is in the same absurd category as the similar articles about how AirPods contribute to e-waste. just look at them! They’re tiny! Or the breathless editorials blaming Elon for destroying the environment with the damage done to the launchpad by his rocket.. a one time incident that threw a few chunks of concrete on a beach and killed not a single animal. In a way the more absurd and outlandish the claim the more it is circulated by people that want to stop something they’re scared of, usually in the sense of “this is bad for my career”. “Windmills kill birds, didn’t you know?!” — someone working for the petrochemical industry. Write down two numbers before replying: the gigalitres of water used industrially in a similar manner — don’t forget to include literally every skyscraper’s HVAC system that uses evaporative cooling — and then the liters used by ChatGPT. Divide the two numbers. Then, and only then, try to make a coherent argument about why ChatGPT is specifically a worse water-usage problem than, say, the rest of the Azure data center where it’s hosted that the NY Times hack who’s about to be replaced by a bot strangely had no problem with.
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  What’s wrong with this perspective? Why are the scale of incumbents not part of these stories?
  - jiggawatts 2y ago
    "Industrial activity requires inputs" is not news, not even remotely. We don't have Star Trek replicators and free energy. "Data centre uses water for cooling" is also not news, not in the slightest, in any way, shape or form. It's how it's done. It's how it's been done for decades, at a huge scale, but that scale is absolutely dwarfed by... checks notes... everything else. Literally just the leaks in municipal water pipes use more water than a data centre. "ChatGPT uses a lot of water" is either a hit-piece, or a failed journalist desperately trying to make a non-story into something that'll get eyeballs. I guess they succeeded. PS: That, or they're simply innumerate. The general population is! Teraliters, gigaliters, megaliters, they all sound big, ya know? PPS: Some numbers! Sydney Water lost 25,700 megaliters to leaks in that one city per year. A "hyperscaler" data centre uses up to 750 megaliters per year for cooling. Azure uses maybe 10% of their cooling capacity for ChatGPT, but I suspect it's a lot less. That's... what.. 75 megaliters per year per data centre? Water pipe leaks are wasting 340x as much as AI compute, which is a useful software product. Water leaks are pure waste. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nine-per-cent-of-sydney-s-water-goes-down-the-drain-20191217-p53kw5.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nine-per-cent-of-sydney-... and https://dgtlinfra.com/data-center-water-usage/ https://dgtlinfra.com/data-center-water-usage/
    - ttyprintk 2y ago
      Totally agree. Both water and electricity have fugitive problems. Sydney has an interesting application: capturing an iceberg and towing it to one part of the harbor. At that point, waste heat from a data center could be useful in melting it into the water system.

jiggawatts 2y ago

Please don’t be that person quoting the rules when you don’t understand the arguments. This hit piece from someone whose job is directly endangered by LLMs is in the same absurd category as the similar articles about how AirPods contribute to e-waste. just look at them! They’re tiny! Or the breathless editorials blaming Elon for destroying the environment with the damage done to the launchpad by his rocket.. a one time incident that threw a few chunks of concrete on a beach and killed not a single animal. In a way the more absurd and outlandish the claim the more it is circulated by people that want to stop something they’re scared of, usually in the sense of “this is bad for my career”. “Windmills kill birds, didn’t you know?!” — someone working for the petrochemical industry. Write down two numbers before replying: the gigalitres of water used industrially in a similar manner — don’t forget to include literally every skyscraper’s HVAC system that uses evaporative cooling — and then the liters used by ChatGPT. Divide the two numbers. Then, and only then, try to make a coherent argument about why ChatGPT is specifically a worse water-usage problem than, say, the rest of the Azure data center where it’s hosted that the NY Times hack who’s about to be replaced by a bot strangely had no problem with.

ttyprintk 2y ago
What’s wrong with this perspective? Why are the scale of incumbents not part of these stories?
- jiggawatts 2y ago
  "Industrial activity requires inputs" is not news, not even remotely. We don't have Star Trek replicators and free energy. "Data centre uses water for cooling" is also not news, not in the slightest, in any way, shape or form. It's how it's done. It's how it's been done for decades, at a huge scale, but that scale is absolutely dwarfed by... checks notes... everything else. Literally just the leaks in municipal water pipes use more water than a data centre. "ChatGPT uses a lot of water" is either a hit-piece, or a failed journalist desperately trying to make a non-story into something that'll get eyeballs. I guess they succeeded. PS: That, or they're simply innumerate. The general population is! Teraliters, gigaliters, megaliters, they all sound big, ya know? PPS: Some numbers! Sydney Water lost 25,700 megaliters to leaks in that one city per year. A "hyperscaler" data centre uses up to 750 megaliters per year for cooling. Azure uses maybe 10% of their cooling capacity for ChatGPT, but I suspect it's a lot less. That's... what.. 75 megaliters per year per data centre? Water pipe leaks are wasting 340x as much as AI compute, which is a useful software product. Water leaks are pure waste. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nine-per-cent-of-sydney-s-water-goes-down-the-drain-20191217-p53kw5.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/nine-per-cent-of-sydney-... and https://dgtlinfra.com/data-center-water-usage/ https://dgtlinfra.com/data-center-water-usage/
  - ttyprintk 2y ago
    Totally agree. Both water and electricity have fugitive problems. Sydney has an interesting application: capturing an iceberg and towing it to one part of the harbor. At that point, waste heat from a data center could be useful in melting it into the water system.