• ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is why I say please and thank you to Alexa (also to model appropriate behavior for my young kids).

    • bhmnscmm@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I live here and people are getting priority over AI?

      Iowa isn’t like many states where there is water scarcity. This cooling water isn’t even being consumed. It’s used for cooling and returned to the waste water system.

        • bhmnscmm@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Pretty much, unfortunately.

          Nobody wants to talk about all the wind energy used to run these data centers either, because that won’t generate any outrage.

        • bhmnscmm@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Not really. At least not in the sense that it’s a net loss of water downstream.

          It’s not like irrigation or bottling, where water is entirely removed from the system and not returned.

          • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            It is removed from the system. It’s not practically immediately recoverable. The capacity to supply that water has been spent.

            • bhmnscmm@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              If you want to talk about water treatment capacity, then sure. Treatment capacity is used for cooling.

              That’s not what I’m talking about though. I’m talking about the mass of water being consumed (i.e., removed) from the watershed. The water removed from the river for cooling is returned. There is no net loss of water.

              • Sconrad122@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                There is a net loss of potable water (or potable water capacity, if you prefer), which is often a capacity bottleneck before non-potable water due to the infrastructure required to generate it. However, according to a comment above, Microsoft is using evaporative coolers, which specifically work by losing water (through evaporation). It’s not a 100% loss rate to the watershed, but it’s not net zero either

    • stigmata@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      At Meta we have a massive system for cutting out our net effect on water for the local area. I’m in NM and the DC here is almost actually adding to the water. I can’t imagine Microsoft would behind as to not do this. It’s an open design.

    • hglman@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      The water isn’t dirty. It’s warm. It would use even more energy to cool it. It’s a lose-lose.

        • else@lemdro.id
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          1 year ago

          Warm water is the waste product because it’s easier dump the water than to cool the water. Returning the warm water to a usable state is much more expensive at scale.

            • Zima@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              you might be right but some numbers might back up your claim. I doubt that servers could heat water as much as a nuclear reactor. datacenter coolers certainly don’t have to pressurize the water to prevent it from boiling, it doesn’t get that hot.