Thread

Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and electricity usage

384 points · 503 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. cogman10 · 1791149243 · focus · HN ↗
  Did your datacenter consume 9GW?
  I get it, a lot of the older data centers consumed relatively little power. More than nothing but manageable like 1 or 2MW.
  The reason for the "craze" is that the AI datacenters being built are monstrosities that consume way more power, an order of magnitude or more. And a lot of them are going up.
  1. T-A · 1791150077 · focus · HN ↗
    > Did your datacenter consume 9GW?
    I think the largest data centers consume about 1 GW.
    <a href="https://www.enconnex.com/data-center-energy-consumption-and-power-sources/" rel="nofollow">https://www.enconnex.com/data-center-energy-consumption-and-...
    <a href="https://techplustrends.com/1gw-data-center-power-consumption-guide/" rel="nofollow">https://techplustrends.com/1gw-data-center-power-consumption...
    cogman10 · 1791150687 · focus · HN ↗
    > I think the largest data centers consume about 1 GW.
    The largest AI datacenters. And there are multiple planned that consume beyond 1 GW. In particular, I'm referring to the box elder county data center which I believe is one of the largest planned. [1]
    Prior to these AI datacenters, 100MW would have been considered an extremely large amount of power for a single datacenter.
    But also, 1GW is a huge amount of power. More than a lot of states use, and not the really small ones like Wyoming. Just for reference, steel mills use 40MW and there's about 8 of them in the US.
    1GW is an absurd amount of power to consume.
    [1] <a href="https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/kevin-o-learys-9-gw-utah-data-center-campus-approved" rel="nofollow">https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/kevin-o-learys-9-...
    verdverm · 1791152628 · focus · HN ↗
    If we printed electricity like China, this would not be an issue, we can have more electricity at lower prices when we're ready
    <a href="https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/09/03/chinas-solar-capacity-hits-1-28-tw-accounts-for-31-5-of-total-power-capacity/" rel="nofollow">https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/09/03/chinas-solar-capacity...

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.