why can't they use piss, instead, though?
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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They can! We've got a nuclear power plant that evaporates water from sewage for cooling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station
The Palo Verde Generating Station is a nuclear power plant located near Tonopah, Arizona[5] about 45 miles (72 km) west of downtown Phoenix. Palo Verde generates the most electricity of any power plant in the United States per year, and is the largest power plant by net generation as of 2021.[6] Palo Verde has the third-highest rated capacity of any U.S power plant. It is a critical asset to the Southwest, generating approximately 32 million megawatt-hours annually.
At its location in the Arizona desert, Palo Verde is the only nuclear generating facility in the world that is not located adjacent to a large body of above-ground water. The facility evaporates water from the treated sewage of several nearby municipalities to meet its cooling needs. Up to 26 billion US gallons (~100,000,000 m³) of treated water are evaporated each year.[12][13] This water represents about 25% of the annual overdraft of the Arizona Department of Water Resources Phoenix Active Management Area.[14] At the nuclear plant site, the wastewater is further treated and stored in an 85-acre (34 ha) reservoir and a 45-acre (18 ha) reservoir for use in the plant's wet cooling towers.
If you're location-agnostic as to your datacenter, though, probably easier to just stick a datacenter by the ocean and use seawater, though. Lots of that.
EDIT: Or make use of the waste heat instead of throwing it away. If it's winter and you're a town in Alaska, say, you'd probably just as soon have the heat piped your way.
Lots of corrosion from sea water tho. Maybe a heat exchanger that gets regularly replaced would work, but then you lose cooling capacity
awesome! so there is scope to literally piss all over AI! where does one sign up?
There are lots of places where the only impediment to additional usable water is simply building a facility to treat more water, facilities which these AI data center owners are themselves paying for (usually indirectly via a bill from the water utility). The article also doesn't mention any reasons whatsoever why water usage is an issue. It isn't like dehydrating crops in the Sahara will be impacted by water cooled data centers in Columbus, OH.
Because many cities are already draining aquifers which aren't being replenished due to the lower rains and higher demand, and once those are gone, both servers and people will be absolutely fucked?
Generally true and that’s why I often read these articles scratching my head. Make them closed loop! They almost always use chillers…
Water use becomes a concern if the water is moved too far and/or too fast like your Sahara example.
If it's a closed loop system is there anything better than water that can be used?
I've never seen any of these articles explain what this means. How is generative AI "using up" water. When a search uses a liter or whatever of water, what is happening to this water?
Every time that happens, a little more water is burned and a little more carbon is released.
This is just nonsense that makes me think the author doesn't know either.
Water is often used in cooling servers. But it's contained and reused. It doesn't go anywhere, it's the vehicle to move heat from the servers to wherever else. In a pipe. In a closed loop. All these doomsday AI articles act like water is being lost permanently due to the use of these servers. Even if the water was escaping the closed system...did no one pay attention to the water cycle unit in grade school?!
https://dgtlinfra.com/data-center-water-usage/
I found that article really informative, TLDR: a lot of water is recycled and recirculated yes but not all. Also they sometimes evaporate water for cooling, and eventually the water does need replaced. I think the concerns were mostly scale and water increasing in conductivity over time.
It's not a sealed system like a personal computer uses. They're on a huge huge scale. They use evaporation / cooling towers. But those lose a certain amount of water to evaporation which needs to be replaced regularly.
just... use rain water and condensation pipes. Idk why that would be an issue at all
It also generates waste water that has to be sent to a treatment plant they can't dump it back into the environment because it's so concentrated with minerals
"water just comes from rain so we just need more rain clouds!" - them probably
because they genuinely don't know how the water cycle works
So what you are saying is that if it is permanently cloudy and never sunny anymore in the future it is because of the people who love AI and hate solar power? I could see that happening.
Also those people..."We need to ban all forms of weather manipulation technology, because space lasers or something something..."
"But we'l do it anyway!"
Try Pabst Blue Ribbon or a reasonably priced malt liquor and see what happens