Thread

Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and electricity usage

397 points · 517 comments · sensanaty

yeag123 · 1791176084 · focus · HN ↗
As other commenters have pointed out, 13.3 million gallons = ~40.8 acre-feet and this being Nebraska, the obvious comparison is agriculture (Corn and Soybeans being the main crop).
The average Nebraska farm is 989 acers[1] as of 2022 and uses roughly ~1,200 acre-feet of water (or roughly 390 million gallons) per year[2]. So a single average Nebraska farm uses roughly 30 times the water the Lincoln data center uses per year. There are 44,479 farms/ranches covering 44 million acres, which accounts for over 90% of the state's total land area.
Until I looked this up, I didn't appreciate the scale of water usage in farming (even in a state like Nebraska that gets a large amount of rainfall compared to Central or Southern California). I hope that the current data center environmental focus continues to shed light on our industrial water and electrical usage.
[1]<a href="http://farmflavor.com/nebraska/nebraska-crops-livestock/top-nebraska-agriculture-facts/" rel="nofollow">http://farmflavor.com/nebraska/nebraska-crops-livestock/top-... [2]<a href="https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2024/2023-irrigation-and-water-management-data-now-available/" rel="nofollow">https://cropwatch.unl.edu/2024/2023-irrigation-and-water-man...
1. lesostep · 1791189858 · focus · HN ↗
  The mass of plants growth is roughly the mass of water absorbed plus carbon from the atmosphere, minus water evaporated from leafs. The nutrients from the soil don't adhere to much.
  That's to say, farms basically convert water to food and CO2 to O2. I'd say this is the water well spent.
  1. IdiotSavage · 1791191304 · focus · HN ↗
    Certainly the vast majority of water is not absorbed by plants, but evaporates from the ground or drains off without being used. You can't just ignore that.
    groby_b · 1791191902 · focus · HN ↗
    What do you think happens to data center water? (It either evaporates or is recycled)
  2. perlgeek · 1791194997 · focus · HN ↗
    It's certainly well spent if we eat the crops.
    If it's fed to farm animals for meat, that reduces its efficiency by an order of magnitude. There's still plenty of discussion to be had if that is water well spent. It probably depends on a lot of factors.

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