Thread

1. stingraycharles · 1790769649 · focus · HN ↗

   Playing the devil’s advocate: don’t “freedom of information” laws mostly apply to government agencies? If so, why would a private company provide this information?

   I personally believe at the very least the water usage is heavily overblown compared to the agriculture industry. Elecricity is a different issue, and governments should consider reporting requirements or something like that.

   Being angry with datacenter providers is not the solution. And they also need to be built somewhere, and that place is probably best where electricity is abundant and/or cheap.

   1. n4r9 · 1790771200 · focus · HN ↗

      > the water usage is heavily overblown compared to the agriculture industry

      Data centers tend to concentrate their water usage within urban areas, causing a strain on local resources. The value of their output is much less tangible. Their water consumption scales up around tenfold if you consider the indirect usage from generating the electricity.

      But on the other hand; yes, it would also help enormously if people ate less meat.

      1. Aurornis · 1790774302 · focus · HN ↗

         > causing a strain on local resources

         By “strain on local resources” are you just stating the fact that they use resources? Or are you trying to imply that it causes problems for those resources?

         Companies don’t just buy land, connect to water and power, and then the utilities get caught off guard when the water system is suddenly strained by water going somewhere. There are processes for approving this before connection.

         If a new project is causing a “strain on resources” then the utility planners have failed that community.

         1. tzs · 1790794357 · focus · HN ↗

            We're talking about an order of magnitude increase in the number of data centers in less than a decade and way more than an order of magnitude increase in the power needs because the AI data centers use a lot more power than even the big data centers of several years ago.

            That's way beyond what utility planners can reasonably plan for.

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