UK government suggests deleting files to save water

Comments

• ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  A small data center has been estimated to use upwards of 25 million liters of water per year if it relies on old-school cooling methods that allow water to evaporate.

  So pass a law banning evaporative cooling systems from all industrial and commercial applications, give them 6 months to comply and start handing out fines every day past the deadline.

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  • fullsquare@awful.systems ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    straight up not feasible for many serious and necessary facilities like powerplants and refineries, unless you prefer very warm lake or river nearby (which also cools down by evaporation later)

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    • it_depends_man@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      straight up not feasible

      It’s very feasible to create the law, collect the fine, and raise the price on energy sources or industrial process that require the cooling.

      It’s a formality, you could do it in an afternoon. Costs a bit of ink and a piece of paper.

      “But then it gets more expensive!” and “This might push corporations out of the city/country.” is the consequence the people / the government / the country have to have the balls to endure, if they want to stand by things like “having enough water” or “living on earth in the 22nd century”.

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    • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Which is why I mentioned limiting it to data centers as an option

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    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      They could heat many houses or fill many heat reservoirs instead.

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  • thr0w4w4y2@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    cool. and watch the entire right wing go mad over “net zero wokery” and “stealth taxes choking our economy to death.” then watch reform win with a landslide and bulldoze the entire net zero agenda and see where we end up.

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    • ayyy@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      The right will always complain no matter what you do, so why bother listening to them and capitulating?

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• killeronthecorner@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The country is riddled with leaky mains pipes because water companies are more concerned with allocating huge bonuses to themselves than they are with fixing infrastructure.

  Now we’re courting tech companies to build more data centres that our other shitty infrastructure (electric) isn’t even fit to support.

  This is mandated recycling 2.0. Fill supermarkets with products 99% of which come in plastic wrappers, only successfully recover a fraction of that, and then tell the consumer they’re the ones destroying the environment.

  If they can fit my 5 recycling boxes up their rear, then they can shove this up their arse too.

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• pirat@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I suggest spitting to lose weight

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  • shrugs@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Nice analogy. I used this one in the past: “you can’t fix a full disk by deleting word documents”, but I like yours more

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    • ladfrombrad@lemdro.id ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Always used to amaze me as a kid I had to pay 20p to inflate my bike tyre from, air.

      Boggled my mind since I had a hand pump.

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    • msage@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I’m not sure how is this applicable?

      If you have storage for documents, they will fill it up and you have to remove them.

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• melroy@kbin.melroy.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I never heard so much bs in a single article. Those files and emails are stored on cold storage, and is using zero water. I guess it's a goodtthing to remove old files and empty your trash bin, both in real life as well as digital.

  But this article makes no sense at all. Just one query to an AI will use so much more energy and water in comparison with your old email in cold storage. It's a joke.

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• Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  How about deleting private ownership of utilities instead?

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  • Sagan_Wept@lemmynsfw.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Hell yeah!

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• 3dcadmin@lemmy.relayeasy.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I tried deleting my files but I was age checked…

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  • melroy@kbin.melroy.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Fk UK government

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• Vanth@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I hope the Department that released this guidance is being absolutely pilloried in UK media. What an absolutely worthless, dishonest pipe of crap.

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• DFX4509B_2@lemmy.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  How is deleting locally-stored files on your home PC going to save water, when your hardware sips resources vs. any AI datacenter in existence?

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  • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Most people save these thing in some sort of cloud storage solution.

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    • melroy@kbin.melroy.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Cloud is just my own Nextcloud, hosted from my own garage. And trust me, it's using zero water.

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  • Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    What are you, some kind of nerd?

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• Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Authoritarian and incompetent.

  Just like all the other Fascists.

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• Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I don’t think I will. In fact, I think I’ll download more.

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• 9point6@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I’ll also wear green clothing to have the same impact

  Well, deleting stuff causes a load of processing that wouldn’t have otherwise happened… So I guess I should have some coal barbecues?

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• hisao@ani.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  So where does this water go after evaporating or leaking from your toilet? Is it flying into deep space and being lost for our planet forever?

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  • Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Raining over the ocean where it is no longer in the stores of freshwater these systems are pulling from

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    • hisao@ani.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      So this doesn’t sound like a big deal after all. Maybe just stop pulling water from those “stores of freshwater” for cooling purposes and get your own from the ocean.

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• tane69@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Absolute farce of a country

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