Thread

Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and electricity usage

356 points · 458 comments · sensanaty

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. pj_mukh · 1791149527 · focus · HN ↗
  Along those lines just a reminder folks, China is installing about 1GW equivalent of Solar power per day [1]. Lot of Australians can simply stop paying for power now due to free power on offer and batteries [2]. These are not zero-regulation, socialist wastelands.
  All this whinging about "is this project using too much power or not" is pointless scarcity that we've chosen to partake in. If we are to create and spend political capital via hyper-focussing on a single issue, perhaps we should use it to fix this instead?
  [1]: <a href="https://reneweconomy.com.au/just-staggering-china-installs-100-solar-panels-a-second-as-total-pv-capacity-tops-1-terawatt/" rel="nofollow">https://reneweconomy.com.au/just-staggering-china-installs-1...
  [2]:<a href="https://www.energy.gov.au/rebates/solar-sharer-offer" rel="nofollow">https://www.energy.gov.au/rebates/solar-sharer-offer
  1. stogot · 1791149629 · focus · HN ↗
    What about water usage?
    [deleted] · 1791149904 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    dgacmu · 1791150564 · focus · HN ↗
    For most datacenters the actual largest source of water use is indirectly from power generation (coal, nat gas). Solar reduces that a lot also.
    adastra22 · 1791151131 · focus · HN ↗
    The water isn’t actually used. It is slightly warmed.
    LaurensBER · 1791151463 · focus · HN ↗
    In some cases chemicals are added to the water to increase cooling efficiency.
    This is a choice, alternative approaches do exist but we should definitely not assume that datacenter water usage is _always_ benign.
    shadowgovt · 1791154835 · focus · HN ↗
    In the Nebraska system, the water goes into the municipal waste channels and is treated like any other municipal wastewater, so the chemical additives are handled.
    stogot · 1791162560 · focus · HN ↗
    what does handled mean?
    carefree-bob · 1791151737 · focus · HN ↗
    Most data centers are closed loop systems, they circulate the water over and over again.
    You understand, the water isn't used up? It's not even used up in agriculture. Even when you drink a glass of water, the water doesn't actually disappear, soon someone else will be drinking it. The same water that was on the earth when the dinosaurs walked the planet is still on the earth today. No need to panic about someone using water.
    The only reason to be concerned is if someone is mixing the water with other chemicals at a rate faster than the natural filtration and then not paying for the treatment to purify the water again. But that is not an issue with data centers. Merely using water is a concern only for people who don't understand how matter is preserved, but a school physics book should dispel those concerns.
    adzm · 1791152637 · focus · HN ↗
    > It's not even used up in agriculture.
    However, the source of the water can be "used up" faster than it can be replenished, such as in the case of some aquifers
    mik1998 · 1791152752 · focus · HN ↗
    That’s not entirely correct. Overall water is preserved but local sources of freshwater can be depleted or contaminated, which raises the cost of water.
    alpaca128 · 1791153480 · focus · HN ↗
    Sure the water is still somewhere, but its location is important for future use. US water reservoirs are at problematically low levels already.
    > Most data centers are closed loop systems, they circulate the water over and over again.
    The linked article talks about >500 million gallons used by one large Google AI datacenter in a year. It's nice that most are closed loop systems, but if it's such a common thing to do then why isn't it done by default with all those AI datacenters? How cheap is water for Google that recirculating it is not a no-brainer?
    jeffbee · 1791159890 · focus · HN ↗
    "Recirculating" water isn't thermodynamically the same. Evaporating the water is THE POINT of the system. You can make closed-loop coolers but they use more energy.
    tbrownaw · 1791158289 · focus · HN ↗
    > The same water that was on the earth when the dinosaurs walked the planet is still on the earth today.
    Nope. Plants turn water into oxygen and (the H part of) hydrocarbons, and animals turn those back into water. And after that, the result is different water than the cycle started with.
    packetslave · 1791152290 · focus · HN ↗
    Funny how nobody asks the folks who build golf courses "what about water usage?"
    hint: An individual 18-hole course uses between 300,000 to 1 million gallons per day
    verdverm · 1791152847 · focus · HN ↗
    Rather than talking in absolute numbers, ratios help relate human activities better, an example:
    If we can close 1 in 3 golf courses and have all the water we need for data centers - and then some - would that be acceptable to our society?
    Do we desire so much golf that we'd prefer to stress our water systems instead?
    asymmetric · 1791153222 · focus · HN ↗
    I think people actually do though? They are even sabotaged at times (has happened in Europe at least), to protest against their water usage.
    lokar · 1791154570 · focus · HN ↗
    I’ve seen it brought up many times
    stogot · 1791162273 · focus · HN ↗
    I’ve brought this up
  2. wredcoll · 1791151451 · focus · HN ↗
    Hmmm, which political party is famously against solar and renewables in general?
    pj_mukh · 1791152607 · focus · HN ↗
    The same one that is paying for their support for data centers and is shifting as a response [1]. Like I said, if political capital is being spent shifting peoples' stances, how much of a waste is it to know we could move them on this and we chose not to. Generational fumble.
    [1]: <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/6121776-gop-worried-data-center-midterms/" rel="nofollow">https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/6121776-gop-worried-data...
  3. FridayoLeary · 1791153407 · focus · HN ↗
    China are also building tons of coal plants.
  4. WatchDog · 1791156166 · focus · HN ↗
    > Lot of Australians can simply stop paying for power now due to free power on offer and batteries
    This is overstating things.
    Even if you only draw power during these three hours of the day, you still need to pay a daily supply charge, which makes up about 30%(and growing) of the average household electricity bill.
    You would need about a 15 kWh battery to cover your household usage outside of these three hours.
    A 13.5kWh Tesla battery system will cost about $15k installed, the taxpayer will cover about 30% of the battery cost(exc installation), which brings it down closer to $11k.
    If you live an an owner occupied detached house(about 50% of Australian households), and you can afford a ~$11,000 for a battery, then you can probably pay off the battery within about 10 years.

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