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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
bydavidwr ( 791652 ) writes:
I get that the heat has to go somewhere, but there are ways to build a system that doesn't "consume" much water.
Building these kinds of systems may cost more cash up-front but the cost to the people in your state/country (which becomes a political/regulatory cost to you down the road) of using water in areas where water is scarce needs to be factored in.
byHadlock ( 143607 ) writes:
Water consumption doesn't matter much (or at all) near these places:
1. Colombia river basin
2. Mississippi River
3. The entire east coast from Virgina, south to Florida
There's no incentive to conserve water in these areas, access to fresh water is limitless. half to three quarters of data centers are in areas with no problems with water access; the hysterics around water use is being weaponized, rather than rationalized. If you have a data center in California or Arizona, water is more of an i
byMindragon ( 627249 ) writes:
Lawn grass and other urban landscape irrigation in Texas use approximately 1.9 million to 4 million acre-feet of water per year, which is between 619 billion and 1.3 trillion gallons annually. The total water used for all irrigation in Texas, which includes agriculture, is about 7.6 million acre-feet per year (over 2.4 trillion gallons).
The exact total for 2024 is not available, but estimates project that Texas data centers will use nearly 50 billion gallons of water this year
10% of lawn usage not even counting all the rest of water usage. And we do a shit job of recycling water too in this state.
Power - for each new data center going up they are putting in green sources of energy. And newer chips are requiring less power and cooling overall. But that aside, home and commercial power uses more than data center power - by a lot.
While a definitive statewide total for 2024 home power consumption isn't available, Texas is the leading electricity-consuming state in the U.S., and its residential sector accounts for a significant portion of total energy use. In 2023, Texas consumed 492.8 terawatt-hours of electricity overall, with 2024 estimates showing slightly higher monthly demand in the summer months, for example, over 46.4 million megawatt-hours in June.
The total data center power consumption in Texas for 2024 was an estimated nearly 22 million MWh per year, or approximately 4.5% of the state's total electricity consumption for that year. ERCOT's 2024 forecast projected a total demand of 29,614 MW from data centers, crypto mining, and other large loads.
400,000 mw for homes 000,030 mw for data centers crypto and others
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