by dborzov | 2025-08-26 22:03:46+00:00
I am not OP, but, sure, here are the specific facts on "ecological costs" from this podcast (with some help from Perplexity's amazing youtube summary feature):

• Data centers consume lots of water. The example they start with is that Google's data center in Dalles, Oregon used 355 million gallons of water in 2021, which was 29% of all water consumed in the city (its population is 15K though, but they neglect to mention that).

• By 2023, hyperscale data centers used 66 billion liters of water in the U.S.—triple their volume from less than a decade earlier.

• They quote estimates that ChattGPT consumes 500 mL of water for every 10-50 user prompts (or 10-50 mL per prompt).

• in Ireland datacenters in total draw "over 20% of national electricity", which outstrips the total energy usage of all urban homes in the country.

• In Cerrillos, Chile local residents blocked Google's plans to build a datacenter there after discovering the scale of water use the centers would require (169 liters per second iand its a drought-stricken area).

• Power consumption of data centers is enormous and puts a very high load on energy grids across the world.

My impression is that this is clear example of politically-biased podcast with alarmist and accusatory tone, where none of the facts presented are particularly damning in the grand scheme of things.

In data centers with large water consumption, the water mostly (90%) goes to evaporative cooling (they let hot water turn into vapor carrying away the heat) with the rest going to 10% humidification systems (getting to 40-60% humidity inside to prefect static electricity buildup).

Let's take a moment to recognize what a dream "ecological cost" it is - turning water into vapour - compared to the old timey industries and real environmental problems people have had to deal with. Old timers in Cleveland can tell you how until 1970s (before first serious ecological enforcement), Cuyahoga river running through the city would once in a while BURN WITH FIRE Bible-style from all kinds of unprocessed oil-based waste being dumped by plants and factories on its course. It's the unfortunate reality that many of our vital industrial processes that make our civilization possible rely on dissolving all kinds of most dangereous and toxic compounds in water.

Also, the cost of evaporation cooling is not something fundamental to data centers and is not something that cannot be altered with some known engineering solutions and manageble cost overheads if there is a need. For example, in Belgium they built a two-loop water cooling system that can use industry waste or even sea water. You can also get a fully closed-circuit zero running water cooling system (fridge-style) if you absolutely must.

As for high power consumption and "climate change impact", none of this is specific to data centers. We might like it or not but our society runs on energy and electric power. This whole mindset showcased in this podcast that all energy consumption is something bad and its all about reducing it is so 2010s. I think, its obvious by now that this the road to pure economical if not civilizational suicide. A society that does not prioritize building for plentiful, cheap and hopefully clean energy is doomed to wither and stagnate.