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

• bob_wiley@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  [deleted]

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  • bhmnscmm@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Pretty much, unfortunately.

    Nobody wants to talk about all the wind energy used to run these data centers either, because that won’t generate any outrage.

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  • stranger@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    We live in a society

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• ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  That would be considered consumed.

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  • bhmnscmm@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Not really. At least not in the sense that it’s a net loss of water downstream.

    It’s not like irrigation or bottling, where water is entirely removed from the system and not returned.

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    • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It is removed from the system. It’s not practically immediately recoverable. The capacity to supply that water has been spent.

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      • bhmnscmm@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

        If you want to talk about water treatment capacity, then sure. Treatment capacity is used for cooling.

        That’s not what I’m talking about though. I’m talking about the mass of water being consumed (i.e., removed) from the watershed. The water removed from the river for cooling is returned. There is no net loss of water.

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