Lutnick claims that data centers, known for water consumption, ‘don’t use water’ (thehill.com)

submitted 1 week ago by sanitation@lemmy.today to c/politics@lemmy.world

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[-] rabber@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I work at a datacenter that uses around 2 bathtubs of water per month - almost none in the winter and weather dependent in summer. In my opinion not much. The closed loop sends water from the computers up to the roof where it trickles down a series of radiators to cool then flows back inside. Some is lost due to evaporation but it is very efficient. For most of the year we are just blasting in air from outside but the water chillers kick in when the outside temp reaches 23C.

Though sadly they are not building datacenters like this anymore because it's more reliable and cheaper to just use water and discard it. I believe we went this way because power is all hydro here and very cheap.

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 3 points 1 week ago

The electricity generation uses much, much more (on average)

[-] BassTurd@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Is the DC you work more for storage or is it high compute like DCs for LLMs? I'm just curious how the size and heat generation would compare if it's not.

[-] rabber@lemmy.ca 0 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

It's a datacenter used primarily for research computing and education. Internet Archives even pays rent on a rack hosted here.

It used to be the latter but it's becoming the former. We recently had to add many new chillers as we deploy high compute nodes.

Very large increase in power demand but in my location the power grid is way bigger than the load and we sell power to the states that we don't use anyway.

Many new nodes are coming online due to the square kilometer array project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Kilometre_Array

We had to take out some trees and build a tall wall so the neighbours can't hear it which kind of sucks. Nobody has complained but we preemptively built the wall due to bad press over noise complaints circulating the media right now I think.

I have to say the environment inside the data room has become a lot more hostile to work in since we turned on so many high compute nodes. It's very loud and one of the hot aisles is around 42C. I can only imagine the traces of metal bearings I have in my lungs.

Basically though I think it's impossible to deploy a hyper datacenter with the same cooling system we use in 2026. At such mass scale there is no way you could source enough chillers in such short amount of time. After covid it's been hard to get things like this. It's very specialized equipment.

So that's why they are trying to deploy them in the middle of nowhere where you can just steal the water and therefor the cooling system is very simple.

And if we want to get into conspiracies I think this is the real reason that the US administration is so interested in Greenland and Canada. China is close to deploying a quantum computer and whoever does that first will be the new world power without any doubt.

[-] ramble81@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago

Yeah you’re in what I’d refer to as a “traditional” DC. Power per rack in those facilities are about 16kW give or take. Hyperscale AI DCs use about 80-100kW per rack. It’s astonishing that it’s an almost 8x increase in power (and thus water) and they’re cheaping out and not wanting to build closed loop, so you can only imagine what that hot aisle is like.

[-] Astronut@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

You don’t think the traitorous mother fucker would lie do you?

[-] ExtremeDullard@piefed.social 2 points 1 week ago

Lying pedophiles today are allowed to be state secretaries and run their mouths without consequences. What a time we live in...

[-] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 week ago

Fraudster bubble blowers like to have this argument, because the vast majority of new datacenter proposals include a closed water cooling system that consumes very little water.

Focusing on the best arguments against datacenters is the best focus. Electricity price hikes on consumers that are happening. Noise and pollution from cooling systems and local fossil fuel power systems. Financial ruin of bubble fraudster backers has wider impact on human savings plans managed by fraudster backers. Skynet oppression being the ultimate goal of having mass overcapacity for any human/economic purpose.

[-] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago

Where are the zoning people in all this?

Like, the strain on the local/regional electric grid is a serious concern.

There's significant infrastructure that needs to be built to satisfy datacenters needs.

Perhaps we should try to figure out cheap clean energy (and distribution) first, datacenters second?

Or are we okay with rolling blackouts for this?

[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 0 points 1 week ago

I wondered exactly that when I see how water usage seems to have pierced the public consciousness.

Feels like the perfect red herring to blunt opposition to these when people find out that they use a fraction of the water that is being claimed by some.

But I now see data centers lumped in with golf courses, almonds, and "too much housing" in discussions involving normies when it comes to water usage...

[-] theneverfox@pawb.social 2 points 1 week ago

I think it's more that some datacenters were using significant amounts water in places where there already wasn't enough to go around

The truth is datacenters don't even always use water cooling, and even when they do it's not a ridiculous amount of water

But people latched onto the water thing, even if it's not true, it's spiritually true. They are using up insane amounts of resources... Just not water specifically

[-] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago

Nah wasn't long ago they'd tell you all about water usage for almond milk...while also completely forgetting that dairy cows also need water (and significantly more of it per gallon).

Although I would gladly concede that we shouldn't be milking almonds when soy and pea consume so much less water and are much more nutritionally dense.

[-] CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I cannot tell you how many omnivores have set about lecturing ME on water usage related to almonds when they found out I was vegetarian. At least one time was while they were literally eating a cheeseburger.

For one thing, my household doesn't use all that much almond milk, but I guess many omnivores assume that vegetarians or vegans eat nothing but salad and tofu and guzzle almond milk.

Anyway, being a vegetarian has placed me in the center of some rather very bizarre conversations from people that are completely ignorant about not only nutrition (I mean how many fucking times can one hear the "but where do you get your protein?" question), but about their own diet's implications...specifically to things like fuel and water usage and the pollutants it creates...

Maybe I'll get worried about almond milk's water consumption if meat and dairy becomes a scarce thing. Until then, I'm not really taking the bait on what I consider is a lot of concern-trolling, especially while meat and dairy production doesn't show any signs of slowing down.

[-] Soleos@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Ah, so municipalities should ration water to data centers just enough to cover sanitation and drinking needs, got it.

[-] AbouBenAdhem@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

The data centers will be towed beyond the environment.

[-] billwashere@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

I get this reference 🤣

[-] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I've heard Silicon Valley psychos referring to it as "The Water Hoax"

[-] Eternal192@anarchist.nexus 1 points 1 week ago

Oh he's definitely not saying that because he found a anonymous envelope full of money.

this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2026

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