AIBU to be concerned that people do not know data centres use drinking water?

[liquidfinch]

Made a thread about the hosepipe ban and data centres came up.

One person got very angry with me and said I was being ridiculous for bringing that up since data centers do not use drinking water... Surprise! Data centres do require drinking water (potable).

Quite concerned that most people are unaware of what the reality is and want to bring this issue to light.

YABU = if you knew that data centres use drinking water
YANBU = if you did not know that data centres use drinking water

Edit: I've realised this question doesn't really lend itself naturally to an AIBU question, sorry for the confusion while I worked out which way around it made sense to ask for votes! If you did know about this but don't think I was being unreasonable I suppose you could just not vote...

The majority of DCs in the UK and those that I am aware of in planning use potable water to charge the cooling systems closed loops. The loop is used to pick up heat from the data halls and then take it to dry coolers (think car radiators) to eject the heat into the atmosphere. The water in the loop is pumped around for years with very small top ups required when pumps are changed etc. There is no massive ongoing demand.

Legionella caused many buildings to remove evaporative cooling towers in the UK and cooling system designers don't like specifying them now.
DC's could and should IMHO be co located with and by using heat exchangers and heat pumps send their ejected heat to nearby buildings, think shopping centres, swimming pools, offices, wharehouses etc. They could then get credit in their Power Utilisation Effectiveness calculations as the heat is not wasted but passed onto and used by a third party.

I wanted to place a DC in the Olympic Park, it has not only two combined heat and power energy centres, required for resilience but a system of pipes that transport heated and chilled water to other buildings located there, all in closed loop systems. An exemplar for the UK.

I do know about this but don’t understand why it is. Could they not find the technology to make them run on sea water if we must have AI (and I don’t really understand why we have to)

It can be done when you are building new, but the honest truth (having done it) is that it gunks things up something awful and then you get leaks, which is not great.

Anything which relies on o rings for watertightness really wants clean water. Waste water systems are not under pressure, so that is not an issue.

Well said.
We will have rations in future. As other countries do.
My view of the future is very dystopian and I pray DD doesn’t want children to be honest. Humans have ruined this planet and AI will destroy us.
I work in an L.A and AI is being heavily pushed, even for composing a bloody email ffs.

As in water rations.

I work in the water industry (not in the UK!) and it’s shocking to learn how much (usually potable) water so many normal everyday things use. Cardboard is obviously a better material than plastic, but it’s not widely known that paper/cardboard production uses about 40,000+ per tonne, obviously pharmaceutical, semi-conductor manufacturing etc.

I get the heebie jeebies thinking about the amount of water it takes to make and run the smartphones we’re all using to argue about water usage.

and that's before you realise quite how much water almond farming takes

Hope you don't eat meat then, which uses orders of magnitude more water than data centres

Yes! Isn’t it something like 3 litres per almond? And cotton- had to look it up again but it’s c. 10,000 liters per kilo, and I’d imagine most of us have many, many kilos of cotton in our wardrobes and airing cupboards.

Coffee is something like 20,000 liters per kilo, chocolate 17,000. Rice and citrus fruits are insane too.

Had to look it up- farming worldwide uses 70% of global water. Obviously, not all used on irrigation/livestock is treated, but certainly is for processing.

Some of them are going to rely on part on rainwater harvesting but the one in Devon will still rely on potable water for part of it cooling needs.
Do these new data centres not cause environmental damage? Including a horrible low humming/vibration noise for those living next to them?
We don’t need AI that badly. I hear all the information about those living next to datacentres in the US and I think I would hate to live next door to one.

We should all be concerned what happens to that water afterwards, how it’s treated and the possibility of leakage of chemicals into our water supply.

We don’t need AI that badly.

You may not have realised yet, but no one cares what the people think. You are getting "AI" whether you like it or not.

You don't think food production should take priority over data servers?

Gets me every time that local leisure centre pools are bloody freezing. Why cant we find uses for the warm water coming out of data centres? In winter they should be providing hot water to nearby buildings.

No I am just talking about meat which we could obviously cut back on massively and is the biggest user of water.

I agree. We should be figuring out a way for as many homes as possible to harvest rainwater and use grey water recycling before we develop computers to think for us. Oh wait.

Belgium has mandatory rain water harvesting systems for all new builds and most house renovations.
My SIL has friends in Belgium who manage most of the year with their tank of rain water for flushing toilets, washing clothes and garden needs. Mad that we dont do that here.

I don’t care. It’s circulated