grok is using delicious clean drinking water from the memphis sands aquifer for cooling. elon promised to build a water treatment plant in order to stop using drinking water but, and you’ll never believe this, he didn’t.
he did the same in germany. When questioned about the water usage of his tesla factory he gaslighted every1 by saying look here's water everywhere. Turns out, you can only extract so much water from the ecosystem and the inhabitants now have their water rationed. He doesnt give a flying fuck about other people.
When are governments gonna step in and shut that shit down? I understand the corruption in the US will always put profits over people, but why are European countries letting american companies do this shit?
There's nothing hard to explain for historians of the future: it was the second gilded age that saw the buildup of the techno-fascist infrastructure by greedy billionaires - sorry, trillionaires - in cahoots with the government. Now get back in line to get counted citizen...
The worst part is all that drinking water is being wasted semi-permanently. Most of it then goes to the sea and becomes saltwater. Even if the US heavily invested into desalination plants right now - it'd take decades to potentially retrieve most of that.
Meanwhile we have commercials on the radio "debunking" the myth that data centers waste a ton of water. We're brainwashing the people, which is becoming easier as our braincells waste away using LLMs.
We need to make evaporation cooling illegal. They can make a closed loop system like Nvidia uses but they won't, because it's more expensive. We need the law to force them to.
What do you mean by "evaporation cooling"? A fraction of the water evaporates to provide cooling, a fraction is discharged as purge to prevent solute accumulation, and the rest is recycled? I thought the main reason that datacenters consume as much water as they do is when they don't recycle the water, and just use it once and then discharge it (no evaporation at all).
One report estimated that U.S. data centers consume 449 million gallons of water per day and 163.7 billion gallons annually (as of 2021).
That estimate was from 2021.
Now it's at least around 600 million gallons of water per day.
Corporate capture of our government has destroyed our country, and will soon destroy our entire way of life. If we stop all harmful emissions today, the planet will still warm for another 20-30 years before it starts going back down. 30 more years of hotter summers, shortened winters, extended hurricane seasons, extended and worse droughts/wildfires...
The people that approved these data centers should be charged with crimes against humanity.
Thanks for sharing stats. If we could convert 5-10% more of total grid to renewable energy it would more than make up for additional data center water consumption growth nationally.
We’re obviously in the Fuck AI community but at least there’s one path to limiting the external damages.
Related Digital’s development of a $16 billion data center in Saline Township, Michigan is moving forward after they sued the local government in response to the locals voting AGAINST the construction. They’re just going to ignore the people’s vote
Same thing is happening in TN right now where a company is trying to build a small data center next to a zoo. The city held public hearings about it, but basically told people it was already a done deal. The company threatened to sue to city if it didn’t pass.
These things are a blight on our society. It’s a race to the bottom with profits coming before everything else.
The drought statistic is true but the water consumption one is batshit insane lmao. It all comes form a press firm called Mordor Intelligence which hasn't meaningfully backed up that claim.
No mystery. The entire point of capitalism is to please the disgustingly privileged at the expense of everybody else. Literally everything is like this. "AI" is just the latest version. See also cars.
New rule: no water cooling in DCs. Air cooling and air con.
That and some hard rules on power usage would go a long way. If the US ever updates its infrastructure, and especially for power, that should open up new, safe options that don't kill or poison people.
For the mean time, though, let's stop the insanity.
That's quite literally impossible. The power consumption has gotten so bad that they need to water cool the AC condensers as far as I know.
Oh and the fun fact is that they could just use closed loop water cooling instead of evaporating all that water away... But many don't because that uses more power and power is more expensive than water.
False! Tge fruit videos are the side project! The real project is undressing minors and generating them doing CP! If you don't believe me, just ask grok!
Have you looked at the record heatwaves hitting the world? We should be reducing meat and dairy and dismantling "AI" data centers. Trading one for the other is nowhere near enough.
Stupid Question:
Why is the heat not used to generate power through heat exchanging devices and turbines? Or at least for heating the water of nearby town by long distance heating? Wouldnt that be a pretty obvious synergy?
The efficiency of power generation from heat increases with a larger temperature difference.
Turbines operate via high pressure steam, not just hot water.
So ya there's a lot of heat given off but it's not "high quality" heat because it isn't hot enough. And if you ran the data center hotter it would destroy the gpus.
57 Comments
turdburglar@piefed.social · 129 pts · 32d
grok is using delicious clean drinking water from the memphis sands aquifer for cooling. elon promised to build a water treatment plant in order to stop using drinking water but, and you’ll never believe this, he didn’t.
fuck elon.
please do not use grok.
Waterpumpee@lemmus.org · 43 pts · 32d
he did the same in germany. When questioned about the water usage of his tesla factory he gaslighted every1 by saying look here's water everywhere. Turns out, you can only extract so much water from the ecosystem and the inhabitants now have their water rationed. He doesnt give a flying fuck about other people.
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 20 pts · 32d
He doesn't even care about his own children. Disowned one and used the toddler as a human shield.
ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 31d
"This is my son Kevlar."
wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz · 6 pts · 32d
When are governments gonna step in and shut that shit down? I understand the corruption in the US will always put profits over people, but why are European countries letting american companies do this shit?
ExtremeDullard@piefed.social · 72 pts · 32d
There's nothing hard to explain for historians of the future: it was the second gilded age that saw the buildup of the techno-fascist infrastructure by greedy billionaires - sorry, trillionaires - in cahoots with the government. Now get back in line to get counted citizen...
wheezy@lemmy.ml · 20 pts · 32d
When the capitalist class heard "it's Socialism or Barbarism" they responded "what about extinction?"
cavitationfetishist2@quokk.au · 4 pts · 32d
HeyJoe@lemmy.world · 51 pts · 32d
I think it's pretty easy. We let the rich rule our world, and the rich demanded this, and so a lot of people just let it happen through bribes.
Fmstrat@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 32d
It's even easier to explain when it becomes public how much of this infrastructure use is consumerism vs most-probably government analysis.
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works · 36 pts · 32d
Reminds me of how Britain starved India cause it forced them to grow tea instead of food for themselves.
some_designer_dude@lemmy.world · 29 pts · 32d
Sounds about white.
DupaCycki@lemmy.world · 32 pts · 32d
The worst part is all that drinking water is being wasted semi-permanently. Most of it then goes to the sea and becomes saltwater. Even if the US heavily invested into desalination plants right now - it'd take decades to potentially retrieve most of that.
All that for... another economic crisis?
cavitationfetishist2@quokk.au · 10 pts · 32d
jdr@lemmy.ml · 31 pts · 32d
Per day? Per year? Per second?
Sounds like a lot of water, but you can't just give an amount of water when you're talking about the rate of something.
errer@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 32d
Yeah and the USA uses 322 billion gallons a day, so this number, which is about a day’s worth, really changes its meaning depending on the timescale.
nettie@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 32d
Per year
https://www.barchart.com/story/news/2339834/ai-data-centers-water-consumption-breaks-264-billion-gallons-in-2025-as-devastating-drought-hits-nearly-63-of-u-s
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip · 8 pts · 32d
No time frame was given, so we can only assume it’s for the lifetime of the entire universe.
Switorik@sh.itjust.works · 24 pts · 32d
Meanwhile we have commercials on the radio "debunking" the myth that data centers waste a ton of water. We're brainwashing the people, which is becoming easier as our braincells waste away using LLMs.
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 21 pts · 32d
We need to make evaporation cooling illegal. They can make a closed loop system like Nvidia uses but they won't, because it's more expensive. We need the law to force them to.
nanometer1625@thelemmy.club · 3 pts · 31d
What do you mean by "evaporation cooling"? A fraction of the water evaporates to provide cooling, a fraction is discharged as purge to prevent solute accumulation, and the rest is recycled? I thought the main reason that datacenters consume as much water as they do is when they don't recycle the water, and just use it once and then discharge it (no evaporation at all).
Malyca@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 31d
Maybe I'm misinformed but I am close to someone that designs them. He said evaporation cooling is cheaper, closed loop systems are more expensive.
jpreston2005@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 32d
That estimate was from 2021.
Now it's at least around 600 million gallons of water per day.
Corporate capture of our government has destroyed our country, and will soon destroy our entire way of life. If we stop all harmful emissions today, the planet will still warm for another 20-30 years before it starts going back down. 30 more years of hotter summers, shortened winters, extended hurricane seasons, extended and worse droughts/wildfires...
The people that approved these data centers should be charged with crimes against humanity.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 17 pts · 32d
Future? Historians?
You are funny.
NostraDavid@programming.dev · 14 pts · 32d
JayDee@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 32d
I wanna know how much of that irrigation goes to corn and lawns/greens.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 32d
Idk but I do know my town is in level 3 drought but the car washes and golf courses are exempt.
BigDiction@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 32d
Thanks for sharing stats. If we could convert 5-10% more of total grid to renewable energy it would more than make up for additional data center water consumption growth nationally.
We’re obviously in the Fuck AI community but at least there’s one path to limiting the external damages.
NostraDavid@programming.dev · -1 pts · 32d
DERRALEXANO@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 32d
Related Digital’s development of a $16 billion data center in Saline Township, Michigan is moving forward after they sued the local government in response to the locals voting AGAINST the construction. They’re just going to ignore the people’s vote
cannedtuna@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 32d
Same thing is happening in TN right now where a company is trying to build a small data center next to a zoo. The city held public hearings about it, but basically told people it was already a done deal. The company threatened to sue to city if it didn’t pass.
These things are a blight on our society. It’s a race to the bottom with profits coming before everything else.
AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social · 11 pts · 32d
The drought statistic is true but the water consumption one is batshit insane lmao. It all comes form a press firm called Mordor Intelligence which hasn't meaningfully backed up that claim.
AI datacenters are likely to not even breach 100 billion gallons BY 2028. (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/08/datacenter-ai-drought-water)
Obviously that's still a lot of water, but 264 billion gallons right now is an absurd claim.
Swaus01@piefed.social · 9 pts · 32d
mossberg590@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 32d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania
Tattorack@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 32d
The likely irony that these data centres will be used in the pipeline of creating a commercial for bottled water.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 9 pts · 32d
No mystery. The entire point of capitalism is to please the disgustingly privileged at the expense of everybody else. Literally everything is like this. "AI" is just the latest version. See also cars.
PattyMcB@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 32d
Not to mention the fact that AI companies aren't even profitable
corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 32d
New rule: no water cooling in DCs. Air cooling and air con.
That and some hard rules on power usage would go a long way. If the US ever updates its infrastructure, and especially for power, that should open up new, safe options that don't kill or poison people.
For the mean time, though, let's stop the insanity.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 32d
That's quite literally impossible. The power consumption has gotten so bad that they need to water cool the AC condensers as far as I know.
Oh and the fun fact is that they could just use closed loop water cooling instead of evaporating all that water away... But many don't because that uses more power and power is more expensive than water.
AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 32d
False! Tge fruit videos are the side project! The real project is undressing minors and generating them doing CP! If you don't believe me, just ask grok!
kandoh@reddthat.com · 3 pts · 31d
The future will talk in awe and condemnation about the scale of our beef consumption.
The amount of water it took to grow the feed they ate.
The amount of greenhouse gases it created.
The fact that the land use required was the size of north america.
The suffering that was required to inflict on the animals themselves.
They won't mention data centers at all.
SnailMagnitude@mander.xyz · 3 pts · 32d
They'd need to be dead inside to not grok it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6ec-O9ivwY
cannedtuna@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 32d
Always pisses me off that companies flagrantly use literary references like “grok” for the most absolutely evil shit
Zephorah@discuss.online · 12 pts · 32d
He thinks he’s cool for knowing the term, that’s why he used it. The man also thought “X” was a cool name…
wowleak@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 32d
If this article is correct i guess we can have AI fruit videos if we skip meat and dairy a day or two a month. https://veganhorizon.substack.com/p/ai-vs-animal-agriculture-the-numbers
mushroommunk@lemmy.today · 5 pts · 32d
Have you looked at the record heatwaves hitting the world? We should be reducing meat and dairy and dismantling "AI" data centers. Trading one for the other is nowhere near enough.
queermunist@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 32d
Instead, we won't reduce anything. In fact we'll increase it!
mushroommunk@lemmy.today · 3 pts · 32d
Including profits! Woohoo! Now musk and Trump can afford even more golf courses and slaves!
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 4 pts · 32d
Why not neither?
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 32d
Vegans like to lie to further their agendas for the betterment of animal rights.
ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 32d
Checked out the link, it's AI slop articles. Vegan "radical" wants to have their AI slop and "radicalism".
Actionschnils@feddit.org · 3 pts · 31d
Stupid Question: Why is the heat not used to generate power through heat exchanging devices and turbines? Or at least for heating the water of nearby town by long distance heating? Wouldnt that be a pretty obvious synergy?
cantstopthesignal@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 31d
Two of the big reasons:
The efficiency of power generation from heat increases with a larger temperature difference.
Turbines operate via high pressure steam, not just hot water.
So ya there's a lot of heat given off but it's not "high quality" heat because it isn't hot enough. And if you ran the data center hotter it would destroy the gpus.
Jake_Farm@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 32d
How about you link a real source instead of some rando.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 32d
As it's always been, come on now.
bitteroldcoot@piefed.social · -4 pts · 32d
No they won't. We do this kind of thing all the time.
The Egyptians build pyramids.
The Babylonians build a tower.
The people of Peru drew the Nazca lines. (very drought related)
The people of the Chaco Canyon built huge structures and a large civilization. Then had to abandon it all during a epic drought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaco_Culture_National_Historical_Park
But the all time winner is the destruction of the Aral sea by the soviet union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
Swaus01@piefed.social · 5 pts · 32d
Jomega@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 32d
Which one of those monuments spys on people and creates CP?
Felis_Catus_Domesticus@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 31d
Define "consume".. where does the water go, again?
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 31d
Evaporative cooling
heartSagan5@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 31d
Cooking fish stock?
ghodawalaaman@programming.dev · 1 pts · 29d
drinkable water -> non-drinkable water.
Felis_Catus_Domesticus@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 29d
Rendered undrinkable how?