Comment on A.I. tools fueled a 34% spike in Microsoft’s water consumption, and one city with its data centers is concerned about the effect on residential supply

• Zarxrax@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Well, building on that question, why do they need a constant supply of clean water? My desktop PC has a water cooler, and it just recirculates the same water.

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  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Because that’s expensive to build on this scale. They’d have to cool the water back down again.

    It’s cheaper to just run cold tapwater in at a fast rate, and dump the hot water intothe sewer.

    Which is why we need laws that go after industries that use insane amounts of water, if we don’t it causes shortages and everyone’s rate to go up

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    • Nougat@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It’s cheaper to just run cold tapwater in at a fast rate, and dump the hot water into the sewer.

      There should be a cost to corporations using municipal water supplies for purposes unrelated to direct consumption for drinking, cooking, washing, toilets. You shouldn't be able to use it for cooling only, and you shouldn't be able to bottle and resell it.

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      • MelodiousFunk@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        you shouldn't be able to bottle and resell it.

        Dasani and Aquafina in shambles

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      • brlemworld@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        We should make it exponentially more expensive the more you use.

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      • grahamsz@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        There's probably some alternate uses for the heat if these things were well designed. There's some building in denver that is near a major sewer and in the winter they use a heat exchanger to extract that energy and use it to heat the building.

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  • netburnr@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Sounds like they are using evaporation cooling towers for the air chillers.

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  • kitonthenet@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It’s evaporative cooling, big cooling towers

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• kalleboo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Power plants use lake water directly for cooling - they use a heat exchanger

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• GigglyBobble@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Do it like a power plant with a closed on a disconnected open loop. It's not exactly a new problem.

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