5 ms·

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

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 2mo 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_ 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo ago
      Spain and EU are like eg Connecticut
      - esposm03 2mo ago
        Care to elaborate?
        evilduck 2mo ago
        Climate-wise I presume. Spain sits on a similar latitude to Connecticut, and much of the EU sits north of the US population.
    - clark_dent 2mo ago
      A whole lot of Americans water their lawns consistently for months on end. Keep in mind that a lot of Americans outside of urban areas also get their water from their own private wells, making water use effectively moot.
    - mafuy 2mo ago
      I dont get your math. 50m3/y is more than 30m3/y, which is what I calculated for the US?
      - Terr_ 2mo ago
        I'm not sure which numbers everyone is using, but US usage stat [0]: 82 gal/ day /person Days to years: ~ 30,000 gal/ year /person To metric: ~ ~113.4 m^3/ year /person [0] https://www.epa.gov/watersense/statistics-and-facts https://www.epa.gov/watersense/statistics-and-facts
- afavour 2mo ago
  I think it's less the hard numbers than "promised not to use then used". It destroys trust in any future developments because you know you can't take them at their word.
  - ToucanLoucan 2mo ago
    This is the emotional truth that a lot of people are just not seeing. It takes so long to build trust. It takes seconds to obliterate it. And big tech as a whole has been obliterating it's trust for like... a decade now. You can't just isolate AI data centers, or even this potentially not-AI one, from everything else and be like "well opposition to this normal thing is ridiculous." Yes, it might well be. However there has been a pattern of abusive behavior on the part of AI DCs ranging from: * Getting zoning approval seemingly against the will of a preponderance of local citizenry * Taking water, or in vastly more quantities anyway, without permission * Tapping water sources they weren't permitted for * The above two of which, I'm pretty sure were only found out when water pressure started dropping in people's homes * Similar to the above, energy demands causing residents to be told to turn down their air conditioning, during a heatwave no less * Resulting in large scale change to the places people live, irrespective of benefits, that they didn't ask for, had no say in, and especially given it's for AI, likely have strong feelings about * The general vibe lately that big tech is above the law, not just zoning laws but seemingly any laws they believe "stifle innovation" Like, you can disagree with all of these points, and give rational, logical arguments to them. And most of them I would agree with you! But just because YOU don't think there's a problem, doesn't mean people don't think there's a problem, and most importantly: you cannot decide there isn't a problem for them. And you can take this even further, expanding beyond just AI into things like the ongoing scandals with Flock cameras, Big Tech's involvement with Israel and it's war, the ongoing scourge that is social media, alongside the old classics: products are broken all the time, services are shut down with little warning, the price of every piece of tech and software seems to constantly be rising, many of which have become more or less essential to life, and at the top of all of these companies are, reliably, the richest people on the damn planet, who seemingly are only getting richer, all the time. TWO of them have their own SPACE programs for goodness sakes. Like I'm sure the majority of people here especially see these things as progress, even aspirational, or at worst, a cost of doing business. What a lot of the public sees is a massive cohort of bullies and oligarchs, seemingly accountable to no one, who are so rich that they can simply ignore laws they deem beneath their ambitions with the pleased signoff of their government. That's not a good situation and simply saying "well they're just dumb luddites" is not a solution. This shit is unstable. People don't see tech as a benefit anymore, not remotely the way they used to anyway. It feels more and more like any time these companies make their presence known in your life, it's a threat to you, or things you care about. And if these companies don't start taking that seriously and try to mend some bridges, I think we're about to see the temperature really start to rise.
- officeplant 2mo ago
  I think I'd rather 33 people get the water.
  - jamiequint 2mo ago
    Good thing you don't get to decide.
    - recursive 2mo ago
      The mayor of Nashville is elected.
- _DeadFred_ 2mo ago
  Why sweep for them? The industry promises/makes commitments with the intention of not keeping them and going through back channels. F em. They are a scumbag/untrustworthy/'we only technically broke the law' industry at this point.
- _DeadFred_ 2mo ago
  Did they commit that they were only going to use 1 million gallons? I got the impression they committed to not using the communities water?

creato 2mo 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_ 2mo 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 2mo 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 2mo ago
    Spain and EU are like eg Connecticut
    - esposm03 2mo ago
      Care to elaborate?
      - evilduck 2mo ago
        Climate-wise I presume. Spain sits on a similar latitude to Connecticut, and much of the EU sits north of the US population.
  - clark_dent 2mo ago
    A whole lot of Americans water their lawns consistently for months on end. Keep in mind that a lot of Americans outside of urban areas also get their water from their own private wells, making water use effectively moot.
  - mafuy 2mo ago
    I dont get your math. 50m3/y is more than 30m3/y, which is what I calculated for the US?
    - Terr_ 2mo ago
      I'm not sure which numbers everyone is using, but US usage stat [0]: 82 gal/ day /person Days to years: ~ 30,000 gal/ year /person To metric: ~ ~113.4 m^3/ year /person [0] https://www.epa.gov/watersense/statistics-and-facts https://www.epa.gov/watersense/statistics-and-facts
afavour 2mo ago
I think it's less the hard numbers than "promised not to use then used". It destroys trust in any future developments because you know you can't take them at their word.
- ToucanLoucan 2mo ago
  This is the emotional truth that a lot of people are just not seeing. It takes so long to build trust. It takes seconds to obliterate it. And big tech as a whole has been obliterating it's trust for like... a decade now. You can't just isolate AI data centers, or even this potentially not-AI one, from everything else and be like "well opposition to this normal thing is ridiculous." Yes, it might well be. However there has been a pattern of abusive behavior on the part of AI DCs ranging from: * Getting zoning approval seemingly against the will of a preponderance of local citizenry * Taking water, or in vastly more quantities anyway, without permission * Tapping water sources they weren't permitted for * The above two of which, I'm pretty sure were only found out when water pressure started dropping in people's homes * Similar to the above, energy demands causing residents to be told to turn down their air conditioning, during a heatwave no less * Resulting in large scale change to the places people live, irrespective of benefits, that they didn't ask for, had no say in, and especially given it's for AI, likely have strong feelings about * The general vibe lately that big tech is above the law, not just zoning laws but seemingly any laws they believe "stifle innovation" Like, you can disagree with all of these points, and give rational, logical arguments to them. And most of them I would agree with you! But just because YOU don't think there's a problem, doesn't mean people don't think there's a problem, and most importantly: you cannot decide there isn't a problem for them. And you can take this even further, expanding beyond just AI into things like the ongoing scandals with Flock cameras, Big Tech's involvement with Israel and it's war, the ongoing scourge that is social media, alongside the old classics: products are broken all the time, services are shut down with little warning, the price of every piece of tech and software seems to constantly be rising, many of which have become more or less essential to life, and at the top of all of these companies are, reliably, the richest people on the damn planet, who seemingly are only getting richer, all the time. TWO of them have their own SPACE programs for goodness sakes. Like I'm sure the majority of people here especially see these things as progress, even aspirational, or at worst, a cost of doing business. What a lot of the public sees is a massive cohort of bullies and oligarchs, seemingly accountable to no one, who are so rich that they can simply ignore laws they deem beneath their ambitions with the pleased signoff of their government. That's not a good situation and simply saying "well they're just dumb luddites" is not a solution. This shit is unstable. People don't see tech as a benefit anymore, not remotely the way they used to anyway. It feels more and more like any time these companies make their presence known in your life, it's a threat to you, or things you care about. And if these companies don't start taking that seriously and try to mend some bridges, I think we're about to see the temperature really start to rise.
officeplant 2mo ago
I think I'd rather 33 people get the water.
- jamiequint 2mo ago
  Good thing you don't get to decide.
  - recursive 2mo ago
    The mayor of Nashville is elected.
_DeadFred_ 2mo ago
Why sweep for them? The industry promises/makes commitments with the intention of not keeping them and going through back channels. F em. They are a scumbag/untrustworthy/'we only technically broke the law' industry at this point.
_DeadFred_ 2mo ago
Did they commit that they were only going to use 1 million gallons? I got the impression they committed to not using the communities water?