Thread

1. tptacek · 1791145040 · focus · HN ↗

   So, basically, not a meaningful amount of water at all. Credit to the story authors for taking the time to frame what 13MM gallons actually works out to.

   1. deckar01 · 1791145894 · focus · HN ↗

      Are you regularly filling Olympic sized pools and checking the water usage of an entire town in Nebraska? I would rather see this put into context by comparing it to other businesses normalized by power usage or square footage.

      1. tptacek · 1791146130 · focus · HN ↗

         No, I'm not checking the water usage of Olympic swimming pools, because I intuitively understand that they are not meaningful users of water.

         1. deckar01 · 1791147593 · focus · HN ↗

            I can see how a 0.27% increase in Lincoln’s water usage intuitively seems insignificant, but that was a a low usage data center in a large city. Papillion has 1/12 of Lincoln’s population, yet it’s data center used 42x more water. Assuming water usage was proportional to population it would have increased the city’s water usage ~136%.

            1. tptacek · 1791149893 · focus · HN ↗

               It doesn't seem insignificant. It is in fact insignificant. And it supports one of the most popular and widely used consumer products of the last 100 years, so it seems like a pretty incredible bargain.

               1. deckar01 · 1791153902 · focus · HN ↗

                  Tech companies are bundling AI into their base subscriptions and force feeding it to consumers, so I doubt the metrics they are reporting to their shareholders represent real demand or value.

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