1332
submitted 2 months ago by floofloof@lemmy.ca to c/technology@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 8 points 2 months ago

But even then, is the water truly consumed?

Yes. People and crops can't drink steam.

Does it get contaminated with something like the cooling water of a nuclear power plant?

That's not a thing in nuclear plants that are functioning correctly. Water that may be evaporated is kept from contact with fissile material, by design, to prevent regional contamination. Now, Cold War era nuclear jet airplanes were a different matter.

Or does the water just get warm and then either be pumped into a water body somewhere or ideally reused to heat homes?

A minority of datacenters use water in such a way Helsinki is the only one that comes to mind. This would be an excellent way of reducing the environmental impacts but requires investments that corporations are seldom willing to make.

There's loads of problems with the energy consumption of AI, but I don't think the water consumption is such a huge problem? Hopefully, anyway.

Unfortunately, it is. Primarily due to climate change. Water insecurity is an an issue of increasing importance and some companies, like Nestlé (fuck Nestlé) are accelerating it for profit. Of vital importance to human lives is getting ahead of the problem, rather than trying to fix it when it inevitably becomes a disaster and millions are dying from thirst.

this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
1332 points (99.4% liked)

Technology

60052 readers
2845 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS