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Comment on Imagine not being able to shower, because AI slop generator machines need that water!

Could someone explain to me how these data centers use up water? Like it’s it evaporating? What happens to the water? I get the water consumption is very high but is the problem we’re removing it from places that don’t refill or does into the environment mean it’s not wastewater? Please someone help me understand.

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RunawayFixer@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Generating power with coal/nuclear/hydro uses water, and since the LLM data centers use power that would otherwise not have been generated, this is one of the ways that they use up water.

For cooling many (most?) data centers use evaporative cooling. That evaporated water could be captured again with a heat pump (reducing the wasted water + recuperating heat for other uses), but it’s Texas, so it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if the data centers have no intensive to be less wasteful.

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- nullroot@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  That is super helpful, thank you.
  
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- WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  
  Generating power with coal/nuclear/hydro uses water, and since the LLM data centers use power that would otherwise not have been generated, this is one of the ways that they use up water.
  
  I doubt those are constantly consuming large amounts of water. hydro just lets it through, and nuclear has chained closed loop systems, and they also let through some after the last loop
  
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  - RunawayFixer@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    A hydro reservoir has much higher evaporation than if there was no reservoir. That’s usually a big part of the discussion when a downstream nation objects against another nation building a dam upstream from them.
    
    Depending on the source, nuclear uses a bit more/a bit less water than coal. But they are in the same order of magnitude.
    
    Image Source: visualizingenergy.org/what-methods-of-electricity…
    
    Ps: biomass power generation is a crime against nature.
    
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    WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    
    A hydro reservoir has much higher evaporation than if there was no reservoir.
    
    oh, I wasn’t aware of that, makes sense.
    
    Ps: biomass power generation is a crime against nature.
    
    why, what’s the problem with that?
    
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frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
They use evaporative cooling in the name of being “green”. Saves a lot of energy, but at the cost of water use.

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- Auth@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Doesnt this mean the water will come back when it rains? Its not being polluted and rendered unusable is it?
  
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  - frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    It’ll come down, but probably over the ocean. Way out to sea, it rains buckets.
    
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