#waterusage — Public Fediverse posts

Block Club Chicago: Blue Island Data Center Planners Get Booed By Residents. “Blue Island residents said they were concerned about potential noise coming from the center as well as water and electricity usage, and how the center could affect housing in the city. One resident, a recent college graduate, told the council that while studying she took courses focused on the ethics and societal […]

Gizmodo: Georgia Data Center Secretly Guzzled 30 Million Gallons of Water Before Paying a Dime. “A Quality Technology Services (QTS) data center campus located about 20 miles south of Atlanta had been draining the Fayette County water supply for months without the utility’s knowledge, Politico reported Friday. By the time officials found the two industrial-scale water hookups feeding the […]

AI data center project secretly sucked 29 million gallons of water over 15 months before detected by residents complaining about low water pressure — officials refuse to fine builders of massive 6.2 million-square-foot facility over unauthorized water use | Tom's Hardware
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/georgia-data-center-used-29-million-gallons-of-water

😳🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤦🏽‍♂️🤬

#technews #ai #DataCenters #wtf #water #waterusage

https://www.europesays.com/news/19863/ Corpus Christi plans to declare a ‘water emergency’ #CorpusChristi #Headlines #News #SouthTexas #Texas #TopStories #Tx #water #WaterCrisis #WaterEmergency #WaterRestrictions #WaterUsage

Colorado Newsline: Data center water use not sustainable in increasingly dry American West. “…another major threat to our precious water in the American West is emerging: hyperscale data centers. If we don’t immediately halt this buildout, we will continue the legacy of failed water management of the river: giving our water away to polluters and profit-hungry developers at the expense of […]

Source New Mexico: Report says national push for AI data centers leading to outsized energy, water consumption. “The report finds that one hyperscale data center can use as much energy as 2 million U.S. households and warns that by 2028, data centers across the nation could collectively use as much water as 18.5 million households.”

This was my rabbit hole for today - a fun and fact filled romp through AI datacentre (& other) water usage discussion from Hank Green:

Why is Everyone So Wrong About AI Water Use??

https://www.youtube[.]com/watch?v=H_c6MWk7PQc

As always - Hank takes a complex topic and breaks it down into small enough, saccharine-and-sarcasm flavoured bites that even someone as woefully under-educated and attention span deficient as I can feel smart about stuff like this.

That being said - the episode is about 23 minutes and change long - which is roughly 20 minute longer than my normal attention span lasts for web based thingies. But certainly well worth the watch.

Not gonna lie though - he did indicate that this was a hard subject to talk about accurately, as there are a number of intertwined factors that the majority of people simply can't (nor should be expected to) understand.

Dear readers - I am happy to report that I am in the majority in this case. But on to the content of the make-you-feel-smart video:

Sam Altman says that the average ChatGPT query uses around 0.000085 gallons of water, or roughly 1 15th of a teaspoon. But then, at the same time, somehow a Morgan Stanley projection predicted annual water use for cooling and electricity generation by AI data centers could reach around 1,000 billion liters by 2028. That's a trillion liters, an 11-fold increase from 2024 estimates.

Given that Morgan Stanley does appear to release the data and methodology for their calculations, and OpenAI, does not - I am apt to find Morgan Stanley more credulous, and that's phrase that I've personally never used before.

So - OpenAI First

First, Sam is talking about the water use per query. But importantly, different queries work different ways with AI. And many queries will actually result in multiple queries you never even see.

This kind of like the folks who make Fig Newtons™ list the caloric count of a serving size to be that of, say, 2 Fig Newtons™, rather than say - a whole sleeve. [1]

However . . .

This is something Sam Altman knows, but it's not something that most people know. Behind the scenes, when you ask GPT-5 a question, it frequently "thinks". They call this reasoning models.

And it "thinks" by, like, preparing and sending out other queries and then reading the results of those queries and then sending out more queries. And then maybe, like, it might spur a search of the internet. So if you ask it a somewhat complex question, it will run an initial query and then it will take that response.

It will evaluate it using another query. It sometimes runs follow-ups until it's happy with the final answer. All those extra queries are additional queries.

So one query might not be one query. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's a bunch. So this in itself might multiply this 1/15th of a teaspoon by, like, 15.

Most LLM queries are at least 3 queries disguised in a trench-coat.

And then there's the more in-depth analysis:

Even while we're using one model like GPT-5, which is actually a bunch of models all stuck together, OpenAI and its competitors are constantly training newer, bigger versions that no one can use yet. And to create these models, like the system runs for weeks or months on enormous clusters of GPUs burning through electricity and water for cooling. It's not really fair to treat that training footprint as separate from every conversation you have with the model.

The conversation could not happen without the training. So if you wanted to be honest, you've got to make some choices. So probably you would want to spread the water used to train all of the models in GPT-5 and spread it across every query people make.

Problem here is no one knows how to do that accurately because OpenAI doesn't share this information, which is part of why it is so easy to get numbers that are both fairly correct and very different from each other. And part of why it's so easy to lie about this from either direction.

So - how does one get to these truly massive estimates of water usage?

We know that data centers use lots of water, but they also use a lot of electricity. And you know what else uses a lot of water? Power plants, specifically thermoelectric power plants. So, a lot of power plants work in the following way.

First, you make heat, then you expose water to that heat, it expands into steam, and that expansion drives past a turbine, and that turbine then spins and that creates the electricity. But then on the other side of this, no one ever thinks about what happens. It doesn't just vent out into the atmosphere.

And according to the US Geological Survey, electricity generation accounts for, get this, 40% of all freshwater withdrawals in the United States. Now, this is confusing though, because the power plants then just put a lot, not all, but a lot of that water back. So, a lot of this water is intake and then return.

So it's not apples to apples in terms of comparing water usage of datacentres to that of powerplants, but at the same time - none of this occurs in a vacuum, and water is a finite resource - whether it's processed for municipal use or not.

Every place has a finite hydrological budget. A certain amount of water that can be pulled from rivers, lakes, reservoirs, or aquifers without causing real harm. You can shift where the strain shows up, because maybe it's in municipal treatment capacity, but maybe it's in an overdrawn aquifer, or maybe it's in a river whose temperature or flow is already stressed.

But you cannot escape the fact that water is locally limited. A data center drawing from a lake is not competing with households for tap water, but it is drawing from the same watershed. And in a lot of places, that watershed is already fully allocated.

Guess where (cough Texas) a lot of these datacentre proposals are being submitted where local aquifers are likely already oversubscribed. But I'm sure that the local folks are putting their Very Best People™ on solving this and won't be wooed by intangible promises of many monies and much jobs as a result of a potential build-out.

But in the grand scheme of things - datacentre water usage is a drop in the bucket (pun like so totally intended) compared to some other uses - specifically corn farming in the states, which brings with it it's own set of peccadilloes, peculiarities and pork barreling.

On average, it takes between 600,000 and 1 million gallons of irrigation water to grow an acre of corn, depending on rainfall and region. Corn uses orders of magnitude more water than AI. According to the US Department of Agriculture, US corn production requires around 20 trillion gallons of water per year, compared to the total estimated global AI data center water use of around 260 billion gallons.

In other words, American corn alone uses nearly 80 times more water annually than all of the world's AI servers combine. And I totally forgive you if you are thinking right now, okay, Hank, yes, but corn is food. We eat it.

Food is very important for people. But that's the thing. We don't eat it.

Maybe 1% of corn is eaten by humans. A lot of it is eaten by livestock. But 40% of it is burned in our cars and trucks.

That acre of corn that evaporated a million gallons of irrigation water will get you roughly 500 gallons of ethanol. So before we even talk about processing, every gallon of ethanol already carries an irrigation footprint of around 1500 gallons of water. Extend that to 40% of the US corn crop.

I mean that may seem like whataboutism, but I see it as perspective setting.

When we talk about water use, it makes sense that you and I don't have a deep understanding of all of this complexity. You do not need to have the level of complexity that you now have having watched this I don't really need to have it either. The reality is some areas are right up against their hydrological budgets.

They can't have new uses. Others have room. Some uses, like irrigating the entire corn belt, involve staggering amounts of water that we've just learned to see as normal.

And I get why people jump on AI water use. Wasting water feels immoral. We are told our whole lives to turn off that sink while we brush.

I'll leave you all with some of my favorites from the conclusion, which I will undoubtedly shamelessly steal and quote in some form or another in the future:

I think that our entire economy is being wagered by not very many people making very strange choices based on an imagining of the future that is, honestly, I don't think likely to occur. Which is not the topic of the video, but I ended up here anyway because I started talking about what I'm most worried about. Like, I can't predict the future.

There seems to be a great deal of debate over whether these tools are actually that useful at all, which I can't find a place in. Like, I just simply don't know. But we cannot predict the future.

We cannot even, apparently, agree upon the present. But yes, in conclusion, resource analysis is complex, the incentives are weird, and we have a very long history of underestimating how dumb corn ethanol is. And all of that combined means that it is very easy to lie about AI water use.

And that's why I drink. [2]

[1]: Shamelessly stolen from the brilliant stand up comedy of Brian Regan.
[2]: Shamelessly stolen from the brilliant stand up comedy of Doug Stanhope

#AI #AISlop #AIDataCenters #WaterUsage #RabbitHole #CornSubsidies #UsPol

Berkeley News: This Berkeley professor is exposing the hidden physical toll of our digital world. “In her forthcoming book, Earthy Algorithms: A Materialist Reading of Digital Literature, [Professor Alex] Saum-Pascual argues that digital tools like generative AI mask the messy reality of the internet — the massive energy, hardware and human labor it requires — to trick us into thinking we […]

CNBC: Data center deals hit record $61 billion in 2025 amid construction frenzy. “Global stocks sold off in November as worries of an AI-fueled bubble persisted. But S&P Global reported that more than $61 billion has flowed into the data center market this year, up slightly from $60.8 billion last year, amid what it called a ‘global construction frenzy.'”

The Hidden Cost of AI: Water Waste and Community Impact

https://dreamspacestudio.net/the-truth-about-ai-water-use-if-fishkeepers-can-do-closed-loop-cooling-billion-dollar-data-centers-can-too/

Support for home gardeners: University of Hawaiʻi seeks input to shape new programs : Kauai Now https://www.allforgardening.com/1527501/support-for-home-gardeners-university-of-hawai%ca%bbi-seeks-input-to-shape-new-programs-kauai-now/ #CollegeOfTropicalAgricultureAndResilience #CommunityEncouragedToCompleteSurvey #EducationalResources #garden #gardening #HawaiiNews #HomeGardeningSurvey #KauaiNews #KauaiNow #Researchers #SupportForHomeGardeners #SurveyOpenThroughEndOfThisYear #TypesOfCropsGrown #UniversityOfHawaii #WaterUsage

Oh no! 🙊 A trillion-dollar corporation tries to hide its water usage like it's the recipe for Coca-Cola. 🥤💧 Apparently, letting everyone know they're not just a rainforest-destroying juggernaut but also a thirst-quenching data hoarder would be bad PR. Who would've thought? 🙄
https://www.source-material.org/amazon-leak-reveals-true-data-centres-water-usage-secret-plan/ #corporateaccountability #waterusage #PRdisaster #datasecrecy #rainforestprotection #HackerNews #ngated

Tom’s Hardware: Google quietly removes net-zero carbon goal from website amid rapid power-hungry AI data center buildout — industry-first sustainability pledge moved to background amidst AI energy crisis. “It appears that Google is starting to hide its internal climate advocacy goals from the public eye. The internet titan has silently removed its goal to ‘pursue net-zero emissions’ across […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/09/07/toms-hardware-google-quietly-removes-net-zero-carbon-goal-from-website-amid-rapid-power-hungry-ai-data-center-buildout-industry-first-sustainability-pledge-moved-to-background-amidst-ai-e/

🚰💸BREAKING NEWS: The U.S. uses water! Who knew? Meanwhile, the Bureau of Reclamation is rolling in its whopping $1.1 billion budget, barely enough for a kiddie pool while other departments are swimming in cash. 😂🏊‍♂️
https://www.construction-physics.com/p/how-does-the-us-use-water #waterusage #budgetissues #BureauOfReclamation #fundingfunny #newsworthy #HackerNews #ngated

#DataCentres to be expanded across #UK as concerns mount

by Zoe Kleinman & Krystina Shveda
8/14/2025

"Data centres, like this one #Google is building in #Hertfordshire, are becoming a more familiar sight across the UK
The number of data centres in the UK is set to increase by almost a fifth, according to figures shared with BBC News.

"Data centres are giant warehouses full of powerful computers used to run digital services from movie streaming to online banking - there are currently an estimated 477 of them in the UK.

"Construction researchers Barbour ABI have analysed planning documents and say that number is set to jump by almost 100, as the growth in artificial intelligence (#AI) increases the need for processing power.

"The majority are due to be built in the next five years.

"However, there are concerns about the huge amount of energy and water the new data centres will consume.

"Some experts have warned it could drive up prices paid by #consumers.
More than half of the new data centres would be in London and neighbouring counties.

"Many are privately funded by US #TechGiants such as Google and Microsoft and major #investment firms.

"A further nine are planned in Wales, one in #Scotland, five in #GreaterManchester and a handful in other parts of the UK, the data shows.

"While the new data centres are mostly due for completion by 2030, the biggest single one planned would come later - a £10-billion AI data centre in #Blyth, near #Newcastle, for the American private investment and wealth management company #Blackstone Group.

"It would involve building 10 giant buildings covering 540,000 square meters - the size of several large shopping centres - on the site of a former #BlythPowerStation.

"Works are set to begin in 2031 and last for more than three years.

"#Microsoft is planning four new data centres in the UK at a total cost of £330 million, with an estimated completion between 2027 and 2029 - two in the #Leeds area, one near Newport in #Wales, and a five-storey site in Acton, north west London.

"And Google is building two data centres, totalling £450m, spread over 400,000 sq m in north east London in the #LeeValley water system."

Read more:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyr9nx0jrzo

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/GukDh

#NoNukesForAI #WaterIsLife #ElectricityUsage #WaterUsage #TechBros #Capitalism #BigTech #BigTechIsWatchingYou #Datacenters #chatbots #InvestmentFirms

#DataCentres to be expanded across #UK as concerns mount

by Zoe Kleinman & Krystina Shveda
8/14/2025

"Data centres, like this one #Google is building in #Hertfordshire, are becoming a more familiar sight across the UK
The number of data centres in the UK is set to increase by almost a fifth, according to figures shared with BBC News.

"Data centres are giant warehouses full of powerful computers used to run digital services from movie streaming to online banking - there are currently an estimated 477 of them in the UK.

"Construction researchers Barbour ABI have analysed planning documents and say that number is set to jump by almost 100, as the growth in artificial intelligence (#AI) increases the need for processing power.

"The majority are due to be built in the next five years.

"However, there are concerns about the huge amount of energy and water the new data centres will consume.

"Some experts have warned it could drive up prices paid by #consumers.
More than half of the new data centres would be in London and neighbouring counties.

"Many are privately funded by US #TechGiants such as Google and Microsoft and major #investment firms.

"A further nine are planned in Wales, one in #Scotland, five in #GreaterManchester and a handful in other parts of the UK, the data shows.

"While the new data centres are mostly due for completion by 2030, the biggest single one planned would come later - a £10-billion AI data centre in #Blyth, near #Newcastle, for the American private investment and wealth management company #Blackstone Group.

"It would involve building 10 giant buildings covering 540,000 square meters - the size of several large shopping centres - on the site of a former #BlythPowerStation.

"Works are set to begin in 2031 and last for more than three years.

"#Microsoft is planning four new data centres in the UK at a total cost of £330 million, with an estimated completion between 2027 and 2029 - two in the #Leeds area, one near Newport in #Wales, and a five-storey site in Acton, north west London.

"And Google is building two data centres, totalling £450m, spread over 400,000 sq m in north east London in the #LeeValley water system."

Read more:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyr9nx0jrzo

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/GukDh

#NoNukesForAI #WaterIsLife #ElectricityUsage #WaterUsage #TechBros #Capitalism #BigTech #BigTechIsWatchingYou #Datacenters #chatbots #InvestmentFirms

#DataCentres to be expanded across #UK as concerns mount

by Zoe Kleinman & Krystina Shveda
8/14/2025

"Data centres, like this one #Google is building in #Hertfordshire, are becoming a more familiar sight across the UK
The number of data centres in the UK is set to increase by almost a fifth, according to figures shared with BBC News.

"Data centres are giant warehouses full of powerful computers used to run digital services from movie streaming to online banking - there are currently an estimated 477 of them in the UK.

"Construction researchers Barbour ABI have analysed planning documents and say that number is set to jump by almost 100, as the growth in artificial intelligence (#AI) increases the need for processing power.

"The majority are due to be built in the next five years.

"However, there are concerns about the huge amount of energy and water the new data centres will consume.

"Some experts have warned it could drive up prices paid by #consumers.
More than half of the new data centres would be in London and neighbouring counties.

"Many are privately funded by US #TechGiants such as Google and Microsoft and major #investment firms.

"A further nine are planned in Wales, one in #Scotland, five in #GreaterManchester and a handful in other parts of the UK, the data shows.

"While the new data centres are mostly due for completion by 2030, the biggest single one planned would come later - a £10-billion AI data centre in #Blyth, near #Newcastle, for the American private investment and wealth management company #Blackstone Group.

"It would involve building 10 giant buildings covering 540,000 square meters - the size of several large shopping centres - on the site of a former #BlythPowerStation.

"Works are set to begin in 2031 and last for more than three years.

"#Microsoft is planning four new data centres in the UK at a total cost of £330 million, with an estimated completion between 2027 and 2029 - two in the #Leeds area, one near Newport in #Wales, and a five-storey site in Acton, north west London.

"And Google is building two data centres, totalling £450m, spread over 400,000 sq m in north east London in the #LeeValley water system."

Read more:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyr9nx0jrzo

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/GukDh

#NoNukesForAI #WaterIsLife #ElectricityUsage #WaterUsage #TechBros #Capitalism #BigTech #BigTechIsWatchingYou #Datacenters #chatbots #InvestmentFirms

#DataCentres to be expanded across #UK as concerns mount

by Zoe Kleinman & Krystina Shveda
8/14/2025

"Data centres, like this one #Google is building in #Hertfordshire, are becoming a more familiar sight across the UK
The number of data centres in the UK is set to increase by almost a fifth, according to figures shared with BBC News.

"Data centres are giant warehouses full of powerful computers used to run digital services from movie streaming to online banking - there are currently an estimated 477 of them in the UK.

"Construction researchers Barbour ABI have analysed planning documents and say that number is set to jump by almost 100, as the growth in artificial intelligence (#AI) increases the need for processing power.

"The majority are due to be built in the next five years.

"However, there are concerns about the huge amount of energy and water the new data centres will consume.

"Some experts have warned it could drive up prices paid by #consumers.
More than half of the new data centres would be in London and neighbouring counties.

"Many are privately funded by US #TechGiants such as Google and Microsoft and major #investment firms.

"A further nine are planned in Wales, one in #Scotland, five in #GreaterManchester and a handful in other parts of the UK, the data shows.

"While the new data centres are mostly due for completion by 2030, the biggest single one planned would come later - a £10-billion AI data centre in #Blyth, near #Newcastle, for the American private investment and wealth management company #Blackstone Group.

"It would involve building 10 giant buildings covering 540,000 square meters - the size of several large shopping centres - on the site of a former #BlythPowerStation.

"Works are set to begin in 2031 and last for more than three years.

"#Microsoft is planning four new data centres in the UK at a total cost of £330 million, with an estimated completion between 2027 and 2029 - two in the #Leeds area, one near Newport in #Wales, and a five-storey site in Acton, north west London.

"And Google is building two data centres, totalling £450m, spread over 400,000 sq m in north east London in the #LeeValley water system."

Read more:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyr9nx0jrzo

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/GukDh

#NoNukesForAI #WaterIsLife #ElectricityUsage #WaterUsage #TechBros #Capitalism #BigTech #BigTechIsWatchingYou #Datacenters #chatbots #InvestmentFirms

#DataCentres to be expanded across #UK as concerns mount

by Zoe Kleinman & Krystina Shveda
8/14/2025

"Data centres, like this one #Google is building in #Hertfordshire, are becoming a more familiar sight across the UK
The number of data centres in the UK is set to increase by almost a fifth, according to figures shared with BBC News.

"Data centres are giant warehouses full of powerful computers used to run digital services from movie streaming to online banking - there are currently an estimated 477 of them in the UK.

"Construction researchers Barbour ABI have analysed planning documents and say that number is set to jump by almost 100, as the growth in artificial intelligence (#AI) increases the need for processing power.

"The majority are due to be built in the next five years.

"However, there are concerns about the huge amount of energy and water the new data centres will consume.

"Some experts have warned it could drive up prices paid by #consumers.
More than half of the new data centres would be in London and neighbouring counties.

"Many are privately funded by US #TechGiants such as Google and Microsoft and major #investment firms.

"A further nine are planned in Wales, one in #Scotland, five in #GreaterManchester and a handful in other parts of the UK, the data shows.

"While the new data centres are mostly due for completion by 2030, the biggest single one planned would come later - a £10-billion AI data centre in #Blyth, near #Newcastle, for the American private investment and wealth management company #Blackstone Group.

"It would involve building 10 giant buildings covering 540,000 square meters - the size of several large shopping centres - on the site of a former #BlythPowerStation.

"Works are set to begin in 2031 and last for more than three years.

"#Microsoft is planning four new data centres in the UK at a total cost of £330 million, with an estimated completion between 2027 and 2029 - two in the #Leeds area, one near Newport in #Wales, and a five-storey site in Acton, north west London.

"And Google is building two data centres, totalling £450m, spread over 400,000 sq m in north east London in the #LeeValley water system."

Read more:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyr9nx0jrzo

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/GukDh

#NoNukesForAI #WaterIsLife #ElectricityUsage #WaterUsage #TechBros #Capitalism #BigTech #BigTechIsWatchingYou #Datacenters #chatbots #InvestmentFirms

Global Fresh Water Demand Will Outstrip Supply By 40% By 2030, Say Experts
--
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/17/global-fresh-water-demand-outstrip-supply-by-2030 <-- shared news article
--
http://turningthetide.watercommission.org/ <-- report, Turning the Tide, A Call to Collective Action By the Global Commission the Economics of Water
--
#GIS #spatial #mapping #water #hydrology #global #resources #waterconservation #watermanagement #watersecurity #management #mining #global #finance #partnerships #economics #impacts #waterresources #waterusage #projects #research #watercrisis #waterindustry #waterefficiency #spatialanalysis #model #modeling #future #climate #climatechange #TurningTheTide
#GlobalCommissionontheEconomicsofWater