Thread

1. aliasxneo · 1791145670 · focus · HN ↗

   I lived in a smaller rural town near a Google datacenter. During my career there I had routinely come across some outlandish accusations made about our water/power usage from the locals. But for obvious reasons I could never dispute them. I remember we hired a local who'd grown up in the town and he was "really surprised" when he started to see what we were doing to remain efficient.

   The current data center craze just feels like the same thing but on a bigger scale.

   1. michaelt · 1791147121 · focus · HN ↗

      > I had routinely come across some outlandish accusations made about our water/power usage from the locals. But for obvious reasons I could never dispute them.

      It'd be pretty easy for the company to dispel those outlandish accusations - the PR department could just report the true numbers.

      1. vmg12 · 1791147927 · focus · HN ↗

         Sam Altman has stated the water usage in multiple interviews (it's low) and people don't believe him.

         1. bluecheese452 · 1791148014 · focus · HN ↗

            [dead]

            1. vmg12 · 1791148921 · focus · HN ↗

               Exactly my point
         2. dspillett · 1791149825 · focus · HN ↗

            Largely because of how many times it could have been stated prior, given it had been a talking point for some time, and the lack of actual evidence (him saying something is not often taken at face value…).

            Of course, they'd like the water thing to stay an issue as it distracts from others. The water problem has been concentrated on because even some of the most adherent climate change deniers recognise that water access is a significant problem in many areas, so it is an issue that can be usefully raised and won't get tied up in the human-caused-climate-change argument. Unfortunately concentrating on that could be distracting from other matters.

         3. jamiek88 · 1791151734 · focus · HN ↗

            That’s because he’s a known liar. Like he’s famous for his sociopathic lying even amongst sociopathic lying billionaires. Impressive almost.

            1. tredre3 · 1791156908 · focus · HN ↗

               That may be true, but I have a feeling that even a third party audit wouldn't appease you. If they confirm Sam's numbers, you'll claim that they were bribed. So how can we solve this problem? Can we trust government officials? Are there any non-biased organizations that could do the audit?

               1. cindyllm · 1791159271 · focus · HN ↗

                  [dead]

         4. shadowgovt · 1791156453 · focus · HN ↗

            Honestly, the water usage isn't the real issue - the electricity use during a climate crisis is. It's also a huge climate opportunity, because datacenter growth is basically gluing a giant pipe of financer money straight into datacenter and support buildout, and if we passed laws requiring the new electrical capacity be 100% renewable... They'd still spend the money, they're convinced this is the future so no cost is too high (an assertion I feel confident making because we're literally experimenting with putting datacenters in space right now).

            Water use has locally been an issue in places where municipalities were taken advantage of and their local water supply management laws weren't set up to account for a giant consumer to just roll up and start pulling past replenishment rate. But there's nothing about datacenters that demand that be the case; those places were cheap to build in (and why they were cheap to build in should probably be its own graduate political theory thesis / series of fraud and mismanagement investigations and prosecutions).

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