Thread

Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and electricity usage

356 points · 458 comments · sensanaty

tptacek · 1791145040 · focus · HN ↗
So, basically, not a meaningful amount of water at all. Credit to the story authors for taking the time to frame what 13MM gallons actually works out to.
1. deckar01 · 1791145894 · focus · HN ↗
  Are you regularly filling Olympic sized pools and checking the water usage of an entire town in Nebraska? I would rather see this put into context by comparing it to other businesses normalized by power usage or square footage.
  1. tptacek · 1791146130 · focus · HN ↗
    No, I'm not checking the water usage of Olympic swimming pools, because I intuitively understand that they are not meaningful users of water.
    linsomniac · 1791147236 · focus · HN ↗
    >they are not meaningful users of water.
    How so? NOT COUNTING leaks and filling, the average Olympic sized swimming pool uses 1-2 million gallons of water a year.
    See EPA Commercial Pooland Spa Equipment Best Management Practices for Commercial and Institutional Facilities <a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-11/ws-commercial-bmp-watersenseatwork_section5.3_commercialpoolsandspas.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2023-11/ws-commer...
    TeMPOraL · 1791148068 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes. GP is literally saying that 1-2 million gallons of water is a pretty small number not meaningful to anything at scale.
    It's basically like framing power consumption in watt hours. A million watt hours is tiny at any scale, your whole neighborhood uses millions every day.
    ordersofmag · 1791149018 · focus · HN ↗
    Please compare 1 million gallons to the 1 quadrillion gallons in the aquifer, or the 31 trillion that falls from sky each year in Nebraska and get back to me.
    kube-system · 1791170866 · focus · HN ↗
    A single average sized fully occupied apartment building uses 8-13 million gallons per year on average.
    A typical single family home uses over 100K gallons.
    deckar01 · 1791147593 · focus · HN ↗
    I can see how a 0.27% increase in Lincoln’s water usage intuitively seems insignificant, but that was a a low usage data center in a large city. Papillion has 1/12 of Lincoln’s population, yet it’s data center used 42x more water. Assuming water usage was proportional to population it would have increased the city’s water usage ~136%.
    tptacek · 1791149893 · focus · HN ↗
    It doesn't seem insignificant. It is in fact insignificant. And it supports one of the most popular and widely used consumer products of the last 100 years, so it seems like a pretty incredible bargain.
    deckar01 · 1791153902 · focus · HN ↗
    Tech companies are bundling AI into their base subscriptions and force feeding it to consumers, so I doubt the metrics they are reporting to their shareholders represent real demand or value.

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