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?
    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.
    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.

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