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Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and electricity usage

384 points · 503 comments · sensanaty

  1. aliasxneo · · 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. bix6 · · focus · HN ↗
      Ok and? This wouldn’t be an issue if google et al would just share the numbers instead of hiding behind NDAs and whatever else.
      1. fastball · · focus · HN ↗
        Are you sure? People think water for data centers is "consumed", like the output is sewage or something. Giving those people concrete numbers is not gonna change such misconceptions (and that's assuming they look at such numbers in reasonable relative terms in the first place).
        1. embedding-shape · · focus · HN ↗
          > Are you sure? People think water for data centers is "consumed", like the output is sewage or something.

          Right, isn't that what sharing the information is about to show, that it isn't consumed? Show how much water they're adding to the ecosystem, since I'm guessing they'd have numbers on that, if that's how it works.

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