Water Wars

[sonatine]

[Sanlmar]

We need an HVAC play ready to go on some kinda scare selloff.

It’s impossible to overstate how different the world will be in 2 years.

I admit to some nostalgia for liberation day. PLTR $65 for instance.

[Dan Druff]

Interesting.

This article kinda sorta explains AI's water usage, but then veers off into a lot of indirect usages (such as wafer fabrication and hydroelectric power) which muddies the entire story. Typical Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cindygo...esource-water/

The big problem is that cooling has always been a challenge in electronics, and with AI's computationally intensive work, it needs an immense amount of water to help cool the machines.

Better computational tech is unlikely to help, as it will probably track directly with the demand for ever-more-complex AI.

Yes, soon this is going to be a problem which will need to be addressed.

[VaughnP]

Do you guys not realize how much water major metros go through in a day? NYC is over a billion gallons a day on average.




The 436 million gallon total quoted in this article is a combined amount over a two year period. It is extreme for something like this, but I don't think it's a supply problem, it's an infrastructure problem.

[lol wow]

Lord desert runner upon whence the water wars commence I believe our first course of action is to drain traitor todges blood into our fuel contraptions we use to power our land barges, before we set sail for the whispered promised territory of one sonatine for whom legend has said his skin is so flappy we can use to power a fleet to sail us to the new islands that are left of humanity

my leige we await your commands

[sonatine]

this is the actual article i quoted but neglected to include;


https://www.sacurrent.com/news/san-a...ought-38116670


so for anyone wondering, the issue isnt that these datacenters somehow make water vanish, its that the water is either evaporated off, returned to the system super-heated, or worst of all, poisoned with chemicals and basically processed/warehoused elsewhere.


so yeah it doesnt get like returned to the local ecosystem or water table. which means that AI datacenters are 100% competing for water with humans when they are built anywhere near them.

[sonatine]

like the boots on the ground narrative in texas right now is a dude working 14 hours at an oil well and coming home and being told he needs to take it easy with the shower because elon musk needs his grok AI waifu to be 10% more bisexual.

[VaughnP]

this is the actual article i quoted but neglected to include;


https://www.sacurrent.com/news/san-a...ought-38116670


so for anyone wondering, the issue isnt that these datacenters somehow make water vanish, its that the water is either evaporated off, returned to the system super-heated, or worst of all, poisoned with chemicals and basically processed/warehoused elsewhere.


so yeah it doesnt get like returned to the local ecosystem or water table. which means that AI datacenters are 100% competing for water with humans when they are built anywhere near them.

This is more ridiculous fear mongering. It is a problem with ones not using the latest cooling methods but not anywhere close to being the apocalyptic issue people are trying to make it out to be. The closed loop systems largely solve the water issues.

[The Boz]

Probably from you flushing every 30 minutes shitting out all your fat ass eats daily.

[OK2]

Maybe somewhere with a cooler climate could have been considered for the location

[FRANKRIZZO]

Here in NY and nyc we got rocked by flooding of subways and lots of cars totally flooded

[sonatine]

Maybe somewhere with a cooler climate could have been considered for the location

you need engineers to live near the datacenter to perform maintenance and upkeep, you need to be able to efficiently supply them with fuel, etc etc.

[sonatine]

https://www.propublica.org/article/w...g-ocean-levels

[Dan Druff]

Maybe somewhere with a cooler climate could have been considered for the location

The temperature outside doesn't matter much. The issue is the AI machines heating themselves up.

One possible solution might involve pulling freshwater from an area where water is plentiful, and directly from the source, so there's no additional expense of sanitizing the water for human consumption (or delivering it via public utilities).

Like... for example, put an AI datacenter near Lake Tahoe, which has 39.75 trillion gallons. Not enough for you? Lake Michigan has 1.3 quadrillion gallons. Suck water directly from a source like that, and wastage is no longer an issue.