Samuel
the water use of datacenters I find to be a weird angle to take. does anything bad happen to water when you run it through a computer? surely you can just let it cool down and then reuse it?
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Marx-Bertil Jonsson Thoreau essentialismens nemesis
Your removing more water from one place (ground water) where it's usually located and it's not sure it get back to that exact place. Resulting in that place (the ground?) drying out? Guess you could use water from somewhere that doesn't have issue with getting dry. Like the ocean.
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Samuel
yeah I mean you *could* unsustainably drain an aquifer. but surely you could just build your DC somewhere wetter where that’s not a concern? A data centre in a drought-stricken desert would be stupid yeah
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Get To Know Nature
Unfortunately there are a lot of data centers in places like Texas where water is an issue. Decisions about where to put them are made more by real estate prices than the water situation. And water is relatively cheap. So they’ll choose the cheaper area even if it stresses the local water system
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Get To Know Nature
Yeah. I mean they could do it properly and in the right places but they’re probably not going to unless some one makes them. Water should probably cost a lot more in those areas than it does, at least for big companies but water politics is very complicated
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