6 ms·

The infrastructure thing I get! The water thing is, I think, baloney, but depending on where you are there's energy generation concerns. Seems totally reasonabl

by tptacek 3mo ago

The infrastructure thing I get! The water thing is, I think, baloney, but depending on where you are there's energy generation concerns. Seems totally reasonable to me for local political bodies to demand that new data center projects account for what they'll do to the local power grid, and, obviously, running jet turbine gas generators is not a reasonable answer to those concerns. What frustrates me about the new political valence of data centers is that there are reasons to be optimistic about data centers in blue states, which could move the market towards renewables and grid modernization, making data centers --- which are going to happen one way or the other --- a vector for improving our current energy system. Instead, they're all just going to be pushed to the locales who will do the least to regulate energy usage.

DANmode 3mo ago
> The water thing is, I think, baloney It’s legal/permitted in most cases, but it’s certainly a problem, what these specific data centers are dispensing into the water table in certain places. What exactly are you saying is baloney?
- namdnay 3mo ago
  The water sediment thing had nothing to do with the building being a data center I think? Any form of construction would interfere with people drinking well water next to it
  - tommica 3mo ago
    Isn't that enough to rethink the construction - it takes a while to build a data center, and I would not be happy that I have to suffer with shitty water because a data center is being built for years.
    - namdnay 3mo ago
      What I mean is that it’s got nothing to do with data centers. Saying “data centers pollute water” is misleading, in these situations 1) we’re talking about people pulling unfiltered untreated well water 2) any building would have had exactly the same effect.
      - techpression 3mo ago
        What? How is a data center that runs insane amounts of water through it every single day the same as a warehouse with a tap and bathroom? And sure, a rocket launch pad would also cause issues, but now it’s a data center that is doing it, let’s not argue fictional realities.
        joatmon-snoo 3mo ago
        It’s not: the datacenter likely consumes less. Datacenters (1) use non-potable water during normal operation and (2) return most of the water they use to the water system, instead of consuming it (as opposed to, say, a golf course). I have yet to read anyone more compelling than Andy Masley on this: https://blog.andymasley.com/p/empire-of-ai-is-wildly-misleading https://blog.andymasley.com/p/empire-of-ai-is-wildly-mislead... (This isn’t a topic I know much about personally, so am open to being persuaded otherwise!)
        techpression 3mo ago
        I didn’t get far until the semantics fall apart, you don’t care if it’s consumption or not when you don’t have water in your tap. And it’s all based on theory, these plants are using systems far under dimensioned for the task, which is never a good thing. The problem with proponents for these behemoths is that they are all about theory and don’t live anywhere near the life they say is so great. https://youtu.be/2Eltf06-NiQ https://youtu.be/2Eltf06-NiQ
        joatmon-snoo 3mo ago
        … do you know what the difference between potable and non-potable water is? AOC is fantastic, but her name doesn’t automatically lend credibility to an argument, certainly not one backed by actual primary sources.
      - hinkley 3mo ago
        They’re buying up undeveloped land that would not have been developed for any other reason. If the only developer is a problem, then it doesn’t matter if all developers are a problem.
  - DANmode 3mo ago
    I am not talking about sediment, or anything construction-related. This is normal operations being done irresponsibly: 1.) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/08/meta-datacenter-ai-wyoming-water https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/08/meta-datacen... 2.) https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/saline-township-residents-frustrated-new-data-center-permit-application/ https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/saline-township-residen...
    - namdnay 3mo ago
      Did you read the guardian article? It’s a bit of a nothing-burger, are we really going to have a national panic based on that? > flushed bacteria-contaminated water into public sewers I do that every morning
      - seanhunter 3mo ago
        …and you get to do that because you pay for clean water and sewage treatment. But that doesn’t mean some company can use the public sewers to dispose of as much bacteria-contaminated water as they like without paying for that externality.
        DANmode 3mo ago
        or flush it off into the woods, because they got a local politician to sign off. With lithium or whatever, in your waste…
      - DANmode 3mo ago
        0.) It shouldn’t be considered a national panic to ask States and communities to stop permitting this behavior. 1.) All bacteria is far from equal. 2.) Some of this wastewater is not problematic because of bacteria, but metals and other things - and some is being pumped into streams, not water treatment loops.
  - cucumber3732842 3mo ago
    Construction (or at least of the type we're talking here, not fracking and tunneling and other things that affect the subsurface water table) interferes with surface water, not ground water.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
scheme271 3mo ago
It doesn't help that at least one datacenter operator and possibly more promised municipalities in Arizona that they wouldn't use their water and then secretly used millions of gallons. This in the middle of water shortages.
- creato 3mo ago
  I don't know what timeframe we are talking about here, but 1 million gallons is how much 33 people in the US use in a year. It's really not that much water.
  - Terr_ 3mo ago
    > 1 million gallons is how much 33 people in the US use in a year. For a moment I was worried that this might be an average that includes indirect usage through industry and agriculture, but AFAICT no, it's in line with just residential usage, so good-on-ya for that. > I don't know what timeframe we are talking about here The utility claims it was 30m gallons over 4 months [0], and 90mgal/yr would be like ~3k individuals. This seems pretty significant given that Fayetteville is only about ~20k residents. [1] [0] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-centers-water-00909988 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-center... [1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/fayettevillecitygeorgia/PST045225 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/fayettevillecit...
    - tecleandor 3mo ago
      I've been checking stats and comparing it with here (Spain) and I never thought the difference of residential water usage was so different. Average use of water per capita in Spain is about 47m3 a year, so a third of the USA. And that number is quite consistent around the EU, except for Greece and Cyprus, where it's about double or even a bit more.
      - applicative 3mo ago
        Spain and EU are like eg Connecticut
kleton 3mo ago
> The water thing It’s amazing how Karen Hao managed to graduate from MIT without learning the difference between m^3 and L
mixdup 3mo ago
>The water thing is, I think, baloney Just like everything else, it depends! There are designs that don't really use that much water, but there are also ways to build these things that absolutely destroy the local water supply. It's a legitimate concern that shouldn't be a deal killer without any discussion, but it also should be discussed and considered and understood how any given project is planning to use water
- andsoitis 3mo ago
  > there are also ways to build these things that absolutely destroy the local water supply Has this happened somewhere?
  - mixdup 3mo ago
    I know of one example where this was a problem, it didn't destroy the local water supply but water usage was absolutely a problem. A family friend is a sales engineer for an industrial/commercial HVAC manufacturer and they had quoted a chiller that I think was basically a swamp cooler, in that it would constantly need new water as it cooled because it was using evaporative cooling Turns out they could not get enough water from the local water utility and a ground water source was not clean enough so they had to build a water pipeline all the way to a neighboring town to supply water for the chillers This is what I was talking about, depending on the HVAC setup it may be closed loop but also it could be evaporative swamp coolers that just absolutely destroy a ton of fresh water daily
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
nozzlegear 3mo ago
> What frustrates me about the new political valence of data centers is that there are reasons to be optimistic about data centers in blue states, which could move the market towards renewables and grid modernization Companies often want to put data centers in the rural parts of blue states (like the southwest of Minnesota, where I live), where the locals are much more red and skeptical, if not outright hostile, toward renewables.

by tptacek 3mo ago

DANmode 3mo ago

> The water thing is, I think, baloney It’s legal/permitted in most cases, but it’s certainly a problem, what these specific data centers are dispensing into the water table in certain places. What exactly are you saying is baloney?

namdnay 3mo ago
The water sediment thing had nothing to do with the building being a data center I think? Any form of construction would interfere with people drinking well water next to it
- tommica 3mo ago
  Isn't that enough to rethink the construction - it takes a while to build a data center, and I would not be happy that I have to suffer with shitty water because a data center is being built for years.
  - namdnay 3mo ago
    What I mean is that it’s got nothing to do with data centers. Saying “data centers pollute water” is misleading, in these situations 1) we’re talking about people pulling unfiltered untreated well water 2) any building would have had exactly the same effect.
    - techpression 3mo ago
      What? How is a data center that runs insane amounts of water through it every single day the same as a warehouse with a tap and bathroom? And sure, a rocket launch pad would also cause issues, but now it’s a data center that is doing it, let’s not argue fictional realities.
      - joatmon-snoo 3mo ago
        It’s not: the datacenter likely consumes less. Datacenters (1) use non-potable water during normal operation and (2) return most of the water they use to the water system, instead of consuming it (as opposed to, say, a golf course). I have yet to read anyone more compelling than Andy Masley on this: https://blog.andymasley.com/p/empire-of-ai-is-wildly-misleading https://blog.andymasley.com/p/empire-of-ai-is-wildly-mislead... (This isn’t a topic I know much about personally, so am open to being persuaded otherwise!)
        techpression 3mo ago
        I didn’t get far until the semantics fall apart, you don’t care if it’s consumption or not when you don’t have water in your tap. And it’s all based on theory, these plants are using systems far under dimensioned for the task, which is never a good thing. The problem with proponents for these behemoths is that they are all about theory and don’t live anywhere near the life they say is so great. https://youtu.be/2Eltf06-NiQ https://youtu.be/2Eltf06-NiQ
        joatmon-snoo 3mo ago
        … do you know what the difference between potable and non-potable water is? AOC is fantastic, but her name doesn’t automatically lend credibility to an argument, certainly not one backed by actual primary sources.
    - hinkley 3mo ago
      They’re buying up undeveloped land that would not have been developed for any other reason. If the only developer is a problem, then it doesn’t matter if all developers are a problem.
- DANmode 3mo ago
  I am not talking about sediment, or anything construction-related. This is normal operations being done irresponsibly: 1.) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/08/meta-datacenter-ai-wyoming-water https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/08/meta-datacen... 2.) https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/saline-township-residents-frustrated-new-data-center-permit-application/ https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/saline-township-residen...
  - namdnay 3mo ago
    Did you read the guardian article? It’s a bit of a nothing-burger, are we really going to have a national panic based on that? > flushed bacteria-contaminated water into public sewers I do that every morning
    - seanhunter 3mo ago
      …and you get to do that because you pay for clean water and sewage treatment. But that doesn’t mean some company can use the public sewers to dispose of as much bacteria-contaminated water as they like without paying for that externality.
      - DANmode 3mo ago
        or flush it off into the woods, because they got a local politician to sign off. With lithium or whatever, in your waste…
    - DANmode 3mo ago
      0.) It shouldn’t be considered a national panic to ask States and communities to stop permitting this behavior. 1.) All bacteria is far from equal. 2.) Some of this wastewater is not problematic because of bacteria, but metals and other things - and some is being pumped into streams, not water treatment loops.
- cucumber3732842 3mo ago
  Construction (or at least of the type we're talking here, not fracking and tunneling and other things that affect the subsurface water table) interferes with surface water, not ground water.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

scheme271 3mo ago

It doesn't help that at least one datacenter operator and possibly more promised municipalities in Arizona that they wouldn't use their water and then secretly used millions of gallons. This in the middle of water shortages.

creato 3mo ago
I don't know what timeframe we are talking about here, but 1 million gallons is how much 33 people in the US use in a year. It's really not that much water.
- Terr_ 3mo ago
  > 1 million gallons is how much 33 people in the US use in a year. For a moment I was worried that this might be an average that includes indirect usage through industry and agriculture, but AFAICT no, it's in line with just residential usage, so good-on-ya for that. > I don't know what timeframe we are talking about here The utility claims it was 30m gallons over 4 months [0], and 90mgal/yr would be like ~3k individuals. This seems pretty significant given that Fayetteville is only about ~20k residents. [1] [0] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-centers-water-00909988 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-center... [1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/fayettevillecitygeorgia/PST045225 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/fayettevillecit...
  - tecleandor 3mo ago
    I've been checking stats and comparing it with here (Spain) and I never thought the difference of residential water usage was so different. Average use of water per capita in Spain is about 47m3 a year, so a third of the USA. And that number is quite consistent around the EU, except for Greece and Cyprus, where it's about double or even a bit more.
    - applicative 3mo ago
      Spain and EU are like eg Connecticut

kleton 3mo ago

> The water thing It’s amazing how Karen Hao managed to graduate from MIT without learning the difference between m^3 and L

mixdup 3mo ago

>The water thing is, I think, baloney Just like everything else, it depends! There are designs that don't really use that much water, but there are also ways to build these things that absolutely destroy the local water supply. It's a legitimate concern that shouldn't be a deal killer without any discussion, but it also should be discussed and considered and understood how any given project is planning to use water

andsoitis 3mo ago
> there are also ways to build these things that absolutely destroy the local water supply Has this happened somewhere?
- mixdup 3mo ago
  I know of one example where this was a problem, it didn't destroy the local water supply but water usage was absolutely a problem. A family friend is a sales engineer for an industrial/commercial HVAC manufacturer and they had quoted a chiller that I think was basically a swamp cooler, in that it would constantly need new water as it cooled because it was using evaporative cooling Turns out they could not get enough water from the local water utility and a ground water source was not clean enough so they had to build a water pipeline all the way to a neighboring town to supply water for the chillers This is what I was talking about, depending on the HVAC setup it may be closed loop but also it could be evaporative swamp coolers that just absolutely destroy a ton of fresh water daily
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]

nozzlegear 3mo ago

> What frustrates me about the new political valence of data centers is that there are reasons to be optimistic about data centers in blue states, which could move the market towards renewables and grid modernization Companies often want to put data centers in the rural parts of blue states (like the southwest of Minnesota, where I live), where the locals are much more red and skeptical, if not outright hostile, toward renewables.