Thread

Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and electricity usage

403 points · 533 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. SupLockDef · 1791190047 · focus · HN ↗
  Because it's well known that the data centers are essential for the survival of the species.
  Now that we know that farms use a lot of water, we are clean to waste any lower amount of water.
  Thank you!
  1. xadhominemx · 1791191433 · focus · HN ↗
    Are corn ethanol and feedstock alfalfa (the two largest agricultural consumers of water) essential for the survival of the species?
    wallst07 · 1791192931 · focus · HN ↗
    It's essential for the united states to be able to feed it's population. Keeping land fertile for farming and all the necessary supply chain intact is a national security issue.
    bobdvb · 1791197456 · focus · HN ↗
    Corn ethanol is a weird carbon subsidy that shouldn't exist.
    It's a weird carbon offset for the fuel industry that isn't effective and it diverts huge amounts of farm land away from food crop usage. It ties farms to industry rather than supplying food, binding their profitability to the price of oil far more and that only exists because the US Gov mandates the ethanol blend.
    It's supposed to be because it's renewable/sustainable using a biological product, but the industry is heavily dependent on synthetic fertilisers which come from refineries.
    There are a great many reasons to get rid of the ethanol mix. Lower food costs being the biggest. Now that EVs are practical the need for trying to whitewash combustion fuel is overbaked.
    api · 1791197559 · focus · HN ↗
    It's pork barrel spending for farming heavy states.

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