4 ms·

Why are they bunk science? I’m not an environmental expert, but the research papers and policies I’ve read don’t seem to be egregiously wrong. I’m asking genui

Why are they bunk science? I’m not an environmental expert, but the research papers and policies I’ve read don’t seem to be egregiously wrong. I’m asking genuinely, I’m open to changing my mind here.

Karrot_Kream 4mo ago
Andy Massey writes about this stuff and is generally heavily disliked by the anti-data-center folks * https://blog.andymasley.com/p/data-center-land-use-issues-are-fake https://blog.andymasley.com/p/data-center-land-use-issues-ar... * https://blog.andymasley.com/p/i-might-have-found-the-specific-way https://blog.andymasley.com/p/i-might-have-found-the-specifi...
atleastoptimal 4mo ago
Regarding water usage, in general data centers do not use more water than other types of heavy manufacturing > The Georgia data center is only using ~2% of the county’s water. For comparison, a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant is using ~4% of the county’s water. A construction plant for Rivian cars is using about the same amount of water as Meta’s data center. The data center is functioning like any other normal industry in the county. https://blog.andymasley.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake https://blog.andymasley.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake Regarding data centers increasing ambient temp, the paper is simply measuring the surface temperature of the buildings, going against the claim that a data center, merely by its presence in a community, raises the ambient temperature by a few degrees or more https://andymasley.com/writing/data-centers-heat-exhaust-is-not/ https://andymasley.com/writing/data-centers-heat-exhaust-is-... I know both sources are from the same guy, but he cites many primary sources in his articles
- blanched 4mo ago
  Thanks for the reply and links, I’ll give it a read today.
- nonethewiser 4mo ago
  >Regarding water usage, in general data centers do not use more water than other types of heavy manufacturing Are the claims really that "Data centers use more water than other types of heavy manufacturing"? I dont think so. Even if thats true, that doesn't mean they cant have a disastrous effect on the local water supply. This isnt a good rebuttal. Frankly I tend to think the anti-datacenter crowd is overreacting. But I don't think you've addressed the real criticisms being levied. In some passing research I saw the datacenters do continuously consume water (its not a one time cost like some claims I've read). And smaller size ones may use water equivalent to around 1000 households, and larger ones may consume closer to the equivalent of around 20,000 households. Evidently the massive one in Utah will at least double the state's entire consumption of water. Can all of these places handle it? I dont know. But that's the question, not if other types of heavy manufacturing have higher demands. And frankly it's inevitable that at least some locations cannot handle it. Which doens't mean you should be anti-datacenter in general. It means you can't just blanket dismiss the water concern for all locations.
  - atleastoptimal 4mo ago
    Data centers do use water, and a lot of it, but the claims being made are hyperbolic and not squared with reality. One criticism I often see is that data centers somehow pollute the local water supply. Data centers use water in a closed loop, their impact on local water quality is negligible. Industrial manufacturing and even agriculture have a far greater deleterious effect. > The EPA’s national assessments repeatedly identify agriculture as the leading source of impairment for rivers and streams due to nutrient and sediment runoff, with continued nitrogen and phosphorus problems that affect drinking water and coastal ecosystems. The thing is, AI data centers bring in far more tax revenue than other water-guzzling domains (like golf courses), but use less water overall. Extreme panic over specifically their water use is disproportionate > How much of this will be AI? Almost all this growth will be driven by AI, but because AI is only 20% of data center power use, its growth will have to be huge to triple total power usage. One forecast says AI energy use in America will be multiplied by 10 by 2030. Because water use is proportionate to energy use, we can multiply AI’s water use by 10 as well. > So in 2030, AI in data centers specifically will be using 0.08% of America’s freshwater. This means it will rise to the level of 5% of America’s current water used on golf courses, or 5% of U.S. steel production, or be about 173 square miles of irrigated corn farms. > The average American’s consumptive lifestyle freshwater footprint is 422 gallons per day. This means that in 2023, AI data centers used as much water as the lifestyles of 25,000 Americans, 0.007% of the population. By 2030, they might use as much as the lifestyles of 250,000 Americans, 0.07% of the population. Not nothing, but 250,000 people over 5 years is just 4% of America’s current rate of population growth. If you found out that immigration plus new births in America would increase by 4% of its current rate, would you first thought be “We can’t afford that, it’s way too much water”?
- croon 4mo ago
  > > The Georgia data center is only using ~2% of the county’s water. For comparison, a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant is using ~4% of the county’s water. A construction plant for Rivian cars is using about the same amount of water as Meta’s data center. The data center is functioning like any other normal industry in the county. How much employment and localized value/tax revenue is created by the pharma plant compared to the data center to offset the environmental effect?

Karrot_Kream 4mo ago

Andy Massey writes about this stuff and is generally heavily disliked by the anti-data-center folks * https://blog.andymasley.com/p/data-center-land-use-issues-are-fake https://blog.andymasley.com/p/data-center-land-use-issues-ar... * https://blog.andymasley.com/p/i-might-have-found-the-specific-way https://blog.andymasley.com/p/i-might-have-found-the-specifi...

atleastoptimal 4mo ago

Regarding water usage, in general data centers do not use more water than other types of heavy manufacturing > The Georgia data center is only using ~2% of the county’s water. For comparison, a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant is using ~4% of the county’s water. A construction plant for Rivian cars is using about the same amount of water as Meta’s data center. The data center is functioning like any other normal industry in the county. https://blog.andymasley.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake https://blog.andymasley.com/p/the-ai-water-issue-is-fake Regarding data centers increasing ambient temp, the paper is simply measuring the surface temperature of the buildings, going against the claim that a data center, merely by its presence in a community, raises the ambient temperature by a few degrees or more https://andymasley.com/writing/data-centers-heat-exhaust-is-not/ https://andymasley.com/writing/data-centers-heat-exhaust-is-... I know both sources are from the same guy, but he cites many primary sources in his articles

blanched 4mo ago
Thanks for the reply and links, I’ll give it a read today.
nonethewiser 4mo ago
>Regarding water usage, in general data centers do not use more water than other types of heavy manufacturing Are the claims really that "Data centers use more water than other types of heavy manufacturing"? I dont think so. Even if thats true, that doesn't mean they cant have a disastrous effect on the local water supply. This isnt a good rebuttal. Frankly I tend to think the anti-datacenter crowd is overreacting. But I don't think you've addressed the real criticisms being levied. In some passing research I saw the datacenters do continuously consume water (its not a one time cost like some claims I've read). And smaller size ones may use water equivalent to around 1000 households, and larger ones may consume closer to the equivalent of around 20,000 households. Evidently the massive one in Utah will at least double the state's entire consumption of water. Can all of these places handle it? I dont know. But that's the question, not if other types of heavy manufacturing have higher demands. And frankly it's inevitable that at least some locations cannot handle it. Which doens't mean you should be anti-datacenter in general. It means you can't just blanket dismiss the water concern for all locations.
- atleastoptimal 4mo ago
  Data centers do use water, and a lot of it, but the claims being made are hyperbolic and not squared with reality. One criticism I often see is that data centers somehow pollute the local water supply. Data centers use water in a closed loop, their impact on local water quality is negligible. Industrial manufacturing and even agriculture have a far greater deleterious effect. > The EPA’s national assessments repeatedly identify agriculture as the leading source of impairment for rivers and streams due to nutrient and sediment runoff, with continued nitrogen and phosphorus problems that affect drinking water and coastal ecosystems. The thing is, AI data centers bring in far more tax revenue than other water-guzzling domains (like golf courses), but use less water overall. Extreme panic over specifically their water use is disproportionate > How much of this will be AI? Almost all this growth will be driven by AI, but because AI is only 20% of data center power use, its growth will have to be huge to triple total power usage. One forecast says AI energy use in America will be multiplied by 10 by 2030. Because water use is proportionate to energy use, we can multiply AI’s water use by 10 as well. > So in 2030, AI in data centers specifically will be using 0.08% of America’s freshwater. This means it will rise to the level of 5% of America’s current water used on golf courses, or 5% of U.S. steel production, or be about 173 square miles of irrigated corn farms. > The average American’s consumptive lifestyle freshwater footprint is 422 gallons per day. This means that in 2023, AI data centers used as much water as the lifestyles of 25,000 Americans, 0.007% of the population. By 2030, they might use as much as the lifestyles of 250,000 Americans, 0.07% of the population. Not nothing, but 250,000 people over 5 years is just 4% of America’s current rate of population growth. If you found out that immigration plus new births in America would increase by 4% of its current rate, would you first thought be “We can’t afford that, it’s way too much water”?
croon 4mo ago
> > The Georgia data center is only using ~2% of the county’s water. For comparison, a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant is using ~4% of the county’s water. A construction plant for Rivian cars is using about the same amount of water as Meta’s data center. The data center is functioning like any other normal industry in the county. How much employment and localized value/tax revenue is created by the pharma plant compared to the data center to offset the environmental effect?