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We ran out of drinking water because we needed to cool down the machines generating 4K AI fruit videos (lemmy.today)

submitted 5 days ago by Wren@lemmy.today to c/BrandNewSentence@lemmy.today

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[–] usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 16 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I'm not sure why people are focused on water for the data centers when that's their smallest issue. The electricity usage is the concerning environmental factor

Water usage by comparison is dominated by agriculture, particularly animal agriculture. Even in water scarce areas, growing cattle feed is a leading source of drought

Correspondingly, our hydrologic modelling reveals that cattle-feed irrigation is the leading driver of flow depletion in one-third of all western US sub-watersheds; cattle-feed irrigation accounts for an average of 75% of all consumptive use in these 369 sub-watersheds. During drought years (that is, the driest 10% of years), more than one-quarter of all rivers in the western US are depleted by more than 75% during summer months (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Fig. 2) and cattle-feed irrigation is the largest water use in more than half of these heavily depleted rivers

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1064&context=wffdocs

[–] otacon239@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Part of it I think is that we can technically live without electricity. We cannot do the same with water.

[–] usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 10 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

That is missing my point that they are not major contributors to water overuse. The other uses wildly dwarf them, especially animal agriculture

On electricity, they are delaying fossil fuel plant closures and run backup generators that emit themselves. They're projected to go from 5 to 15% of electricity use in the US

[–] jumping_redditor@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 days ago

electricity can be converted to clean water, and it's at a slightly better rate than some of the non evaporatively cooled datacenters get

[–] Juice@midwest.social -3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Agricultural water use is bad and wasteful, overuse of fertilizers cause toxic algae blooms in critical biomes which devastate ecological balance.

Data centers directly pollute groundwater with heavy metals, glycol, and other biocides poisoning local groundwater making it unusable for people and agriculture.

Agriculture and datacenters aren't the only water consumer/polluter. Mining, industry, and LNG fracking are major polluters as well. Regulations that used to protect the environment and water supply have been gutted by DOGE and the Trump admin so there is no institutional leverage to preserve our natural resources.

Also, data centers are still being built, which means the current water pollution levels will rapidly compound in the next few years. Several Data centers are being built right in my back yard. The amount and kinds of impact these things have on rural communities is devastating; living near farms just means being stuck behind a tractor on your daily commute for a couple weeks a year. Living near datacenters is and ecological and spiritual blight.

Stop splitting hairs. It isn't "data centers aren't as bad as agriculture," the data centers are bring built where there used to be agriculture, and will have a devastating effect on agricultural capacity. Basically there is a mass industrialization that further compromises water supplies in addition to adding all sorts of environmental pollution, on top of rapidly accelerating deterioration of natural environment and resources. It will have a compounding effect that will damage natural infrastructure for agriculture.

The whole framing of your argument is bizarre. You are literally poisoning the well.

[–] usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

https://archive.is/Gpibv

Around half of the entire Colorado river goes to animal feed alone and it's barely a part of the conversation. Meat consumption has been rising for decades and only leading to more of it

Agriculture also pollutes ground water, and at a far higher rate and frequency. The toxic algae blooms are from the runoff which means high nitrate levels in the local water level. Cancer rates are elevated nearby animal farms. It's not "just a blight"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935126006286

The pollution from animal farming is not just a US problem either

The large footprint for milk in Canterbury indicates just how far the capacity of the environment has been overshot. To maintain that level of production and have healthy water would require either 12 times more rainfall in the region or a 12-fold reduction in cows.

https://theconversation.com/11-000-litres-of-water-to-make-one-litre-of-milk-new-questions-about-the-freshwater-impact-of-nz-dairy-farming-183806

My point is that it's weird to focus on if we're going to just ignore the way larger contributors of animal agriculture to all of those problems with water. I see at least 5x the amounts of posts around water than electricity which is helping datacenters get away with increasing their emissions with less attention