AI is draining water from areas that need it most

Comments

• PoopMonster@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I don’t mean to sound like a dick but do they have proof or anything linking the data centers as the cause to the high water stress? This seems like a very short article claiming they use a lot of water (which they likely do) but don’t present anything other than “Ai consumes in mense amounts of water to cool…”. You’d think they don’t require as much water due to the fact they are being built in already stressed out areas.

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  • cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Many data centers rely on evaporative cooling, or “swamp cooling,” where warm air is drawn through wet pads. Data centers typically evaporate about 80% of the water they draw, discharging 20% back to a wastewater treatment facility, according to Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Riverside. Residential water usage, by comparison, loses just 10% to evaporation, discharging the other 90%, Ren said. (A spokesperson for Google said the company doesn’t have a standard percentage because any data center would see some variation based on factors like location, temperature and humidity.)

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  • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I’m also confused on how they are “consuming” the water. I’m guessing they aren’t closed loop like most later cooling, but are they just… using it till it evaporates? I legitimately don’t understand where this water goes that it’s just… gone?

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    • kn33@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      are they just… using it till it evaporates?

      Yes, but I’d say it goes further. Using it until it evaporates isn’t a side effect of some other cooling process. Evaporating the water is the cooling process.

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    • taladar@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Presumably not gone, just from food quality to dirty.

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  • luce@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I feel that although there are many issues with how machine learning/“AI” is being used, there isnt really as much of an environmental issue as we are led on to believe. Many will write about how AI consumes large amounts of energy, but will not mention how data centers only make 1-2% of energy consumption worldwide, and most data centers arent focusing fully on AI making the actual percentage of “worldwide energy used by AI” much much smaller.

    Alex avila actually argued this very well in his newest video essay, even showing that much of this worry about AI energy use is backed by companies with stakes in energy.

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• Randomgal@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  It’s companies, companies and their capitalist owners doing it. The hammer doesn’t make the table.

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• nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  i still don’t get why they need to throw the water away

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  • cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Not throw away. It evaporates.

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    • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      in a closed system? that quickly?

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• cyrano@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  archive.is/…/2025-ai-impacts-data-centers-water-d…

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• VagueAnodyneComments@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Nice of Mister Bloomberg to let us know how destructive he and his colleagues’ obsessive war against labor is to the environment.

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