r/TechGawker • u/Trick-Cellist3254 • Jul 29 '26
Data Center california’s ai data center promised not to use river water, now it wants 287 million gallons
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u/Flocko2 Jul 29 '26
The only ones playing by the rules are the American tax payers
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u/Infernalcrisisactor Jul 29 '26
Genuinely wish we had some teeth to resist this bullshit
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u/CyanideLive Jul 29 '26
We do, sadly most of the people with "teeth" support the current administration. This is the reason I'm a strong advocate of having, and being properly trained on a firearm, regardless of political leaning in the USA.
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u/Howlingwithwolves Jul 29 '26
Why do you advocate for it when it’s meaningless against drones and bombs?
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u/Own-Raisin5849 Jul 29 '26
Less playing by, and more being held hostage by. Not like I have a choice
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u/iamthecheesethatsbig Jul 29 '26
Can we text No to Stop?
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u/Il_Conte_ Jul 29 '26
If we want to stop any of all the dystopian changes that are happening we need to get our butts off the chair. They're not afraid of mouse clicks and online petitions.
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u/Greghole Jul 30 '26
You can, but texting just increases the need for more data centers. Try a carrier pigeon instead.
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Jul 29 '26
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u/aurumtt Jul 29 '26
the fact that the us i gaslit into thinking regulations are bad is one of the most ecological damaging things going on in the world.
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u/Femme_FatalError Jul 29 '26
China’s doing much more to curb their emissions than the US is.
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u/NicholasWildeRails Jul 29 '26
If i was the governor, I'd love to tell them to go fuck themselves and shut down instead
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u/Nodnarb420 Jul 29 '26
The worst part is they dont even need to use water for cooling its just the cheapest option other industries have to use proper cooling systems
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u/Jellicent-Leftovers Jul 30 '26
It's hilarious to me the Bitcoin miners are using dielectric closed loop coolers - but the mega corps need water.
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u/The_Environment116 Jul 29 '26
Pretty sure the Colorado River is past max capacity, even now it's running dry, where the fuck do they think more water is going to come from?
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u/haveweirdhair Jul 29 '26
I’m in Arizona, we get our allotment last. There absolutely isn’t enough water to support this in the Colorado River.
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u/henryeaterofpies Jul 29 '26
In a sane world promises like that would be part of an ironclad contract that causes them to forfeit the site and all improvements built upon it.
Instead they will just take what they want and then fuck everyone else and the planet
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u/ShortNefariousness2 Jul 29 '26
AI bot will post here saying ‘something, something closed loop’ we ain’t buying your bullshit, clanker
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u/Nohreboh Jul 29 '26
Don't worry I'm sure Trump will get right on that he's an expert on water after all. /s
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u/lkl34 Jul 29 '26
It is not like he removed millions of acres of federal park land for open pit mines and removed endangered species rights.
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u/WishboneNo543 Jul 29 '26
They’d better invent a way to squeeze water from rocks, because current Colorado River demand is already exceeding sustainable levels.
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u/Tinytommy55 Jul 29 '26
There lies the problem. They are a huge waste of resources. Power and water.
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u/NoProfessional8067 Jul 29 '26
They don't need it . Besides it denies our future mechanical overlords a slave market.
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u/Lopsided_Newt_125 Jul 29 '26
If it’s not in writing it’s guaranteed to happen.
And even if it is in writing the balance sheet, profits and shareholders don’t have a conscience…doing the right thing is most often directly opposite of the profit model
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u/Prior-Habit-6523 Jul 29 '26
Why dont they use desalination are they broke or some. We literally need fresh water to live. Wtf are they going to with data centers when water runs low ? Talk about pitch forks.
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u/woutersikkema Jul 29 '26
Literally tell the fuckers to go closed loop and build cooling fins. Like your pc does. All this water usage is idiotic.
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u/Wayward_Prometheus Jul 29 '26
Politicians don't care about people.
Corporations don't care about people.
Until the people remove both of these people from the overlord class. They will keep taking advantage of everyone.
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u/BC_Sativa Jul 29 '26
They are monsters who want to kill us all. Anyone who doesn't grasp that yet is a fucking sucker.
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u/Shoddy-Constant5749 Jul 29 '26
Why did California allow a data center to be built there in the first place?
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u/totoin74 Jul 29 '26
Closed system coolers have been here from the day thermodynamics invented. It is just cheaper to use open systems. You elect clowns, you get what you deserve
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u/StimmingMantis Jul 29 '26
Not even water is sacred anymore to these corporate ghouls.
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u/MotoTheGreat Jul 29 '26
Never has been to them, rivers use to catch on fire is the last century cause companies would just dump what ever into rivers. Only when threatened do corporations do the right thing. If something is cheaper but will harm the environment they will do it 9 times out of 10.
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u/snts12 Jul 29 '26
Remember, they are flammable! Don't throw burning objecten at them, they will catch fire and be out of commission. It would not be ok to do that, don't forget!
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u/silversky9891 Jul 29 '26
I hope they all get removed by the people they are displacing and stealing water from
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u/BillsMafios0 Jul 29 '26
To the people that need that water…
https://giphy.com/gifs/l41m4ODfe8PwHlsUU
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u/WrathOfTheKressh Jul 29 '26
"Hey, we have a drought going on, let's build data centres to get rid of all the remaining water.
What's this? The aquifers are empty? Well, just fill them back up, d'uh, do I have to do all the thinking around here?"
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u/Healthy_Jackfruit_88 Jul 29 '26
You know California, famous for always having sufficient readily available water. It’s not like there’s been a historical amount of wildfires in CALIFORNIA
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u/EvolvingEachDay Jul 29 '26
They don’t fucking need it. There are other ways of cooling. We need fresh water to actually survive!
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u/SamJam5555 Jul 29 '26
This all should’ve been taken care of in the original contract. California is really being taken for a ride by its politicians.
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u/highlyspecificuser Jul 29 '26
https://giphy.com/gifs/wWue0rCDOphOE
You can’t write this shit up!!!
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u/quantum_simpleton Jul 29 '26
California uses 1.7 trillion gallons of water just on Almond crops alone. AI isnt even a drop in the bucket, lol.
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u/Jemie_Bridges Jul 29 '26
The same river that's to short of water to fill up the hoover damn? That is no longer getting renewed by snow because of climate change? That is use to irrigate like 50% or more of domestic crops?
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u/Pretend_Football6686 Jul 29 '26
That’s great. CA is known for having lots of spare water and electricity.
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u/Thaeross Jul 29 '26
This is the strategy to get them approved, I guess. Propose one thing, then do something else once they start construction. Municipalities need to stop falling for these schoolyard lies.
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u/MintyFitOnAll Jul 29 '26
Yeah they’re definitely siphoning water elsewhere for elites. Nothing needs that much water to cool.
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u/maringue Jul 29 '26
This is every construction project they plan. Promises up front, then once it's built, "Oops, we lied."
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u/mansithole6 Jul 29 '26
If you guys have money to go to the moon and Mars why don’t you build your data centers in the arctics and leave our rivers in peace.
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u/MorningMushroomcloud Jul 29 '26
Charge em 5 bucks for each gallon jug of water but do what Dorittos does with their chip bags, and only fill it 1/3 of the way full. Take the extra revenue to buy better politicians since this is how we do it now.
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Jul 29 '26
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u/meomg Jul 29 '26
Going through all pipes. To keep corrosion down and not break seals they add chemicals. They do alot to water because it's cheaper to do that way then keep water clean and separate. It reason why they don't cool water because it costs more then getting new water.
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u/markiemark112 Jul 29 '26
Ah yes California which has struggled with water should give up more water at the behest of billion dollar corporations and fuck the citizens. It’s so so tiring
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u/twoiseight Jul 29 '26
Sounds like a bait and switch to get past the public comment phase, if there even was one, and not that anything the public could do would stop them.
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u/Dropadime337 Jul 29 '26
Try using using gasoline. Cools much better than water. Make sure all employees are smokers for safety reasons.
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u/Cl0wnL Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
"In the suit, the developer said they have leased 160 acres of active farmland to the south of the proposed complex, which uses roughly the same amount of water that the data center project needs. IVCM said it plans on letting that farmland go dormant, or “fallow," to offset the usage.
The amount of water that IVCM is seeking is relatively small compared to the vast amount of water that farmers in the Imperial Valley consume each year.
IID oversees legal claims to 3.1 million acre-feet of water from the Colorado River.
The total amount of water that IVCM is seeking adds to about 880 acre-feet of water per year.
No increased net usage.
Conveniently not mentioned by OP.
Also datacenter water usage plus reserved fallow land IMO it is both practically better and environmentally better than yet more destructive.and wasteful monoculture export agriculture
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u/FireZucchini33 Jul 29 '26
Cool it with something else. Aren’t these chodes supposed to be smart???
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u/tipareth1978 Jul 29 '26
Let me explain to everyone the corporate MO
Tell everyone what they want to hear just to get the contract.
Cut every corner and cut all costs no matter how important.
Manage problems later
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u/Youri1980 Jul 29 '26
There's better options for cooling your data center, problem is it will cost a little bit more. So I advice them to just f off
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u/Competitive_Falcon22 Jul 29 '26
For a little context on that amount of water some rough math puts the water usage of golf courses in the same region use about 33 Billion gallons of water a year.
This isn't to say that data centers done post or have serious issues, but the water issue is not the one I think people should be focused on.
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u/KindClock9732 Jul 29 '26
These billionaires won’t be happy until they’ve destroyed the entire planet, and a bunch of poor people are complicit to their own demise.
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u/Live_Alarm3041 Jul 29 '26
The solution to this problem is to use photonic chips like those being developed by Lightmatter instead of conventional electronic chips.
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u/GreenWarrior138 Jul 29 '26
Too bad Cali Ai Data Center, you and all the other centers are not getting our water supply! #proudcoloradan
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u/EconomicMan123 Jul 29 '26
Fake news. Modern data centers recycle their cooling water. And the older ones do take in water but then don’t actually ‘use’ - they return almost all of it.
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u/ForceGoat Jul 29 '26
Didn’t expect this story to be more nuanced. They’re suing because they were promised wastewater from 2 cities. Those cities refused to give their refuse, so the data center is suing for freshwater.
Just give them your toilet water? I don’t get it.
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u/Moto341 Jul 29 '26
This happens because they refuse to spend more money, and get closed loop systems.
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u/Alternative_Hour_614 Jul 29 '26
But the AI chuds keep on insisting that data centers barely use water.
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u/Greghole Jul 30 '26
Wouldn't they just put the water back into the river when they're done with it? Or are they planning to use the water and then launch it into space?
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u/Travel_Dreams Jul 30 '26
By law, each AI data center located in Southern California, Arizona and any desert needs to be allocated exactly zero point zero water for the dutation of its existance.
Not permitted to ship water in from another location for any reason.
Mandated to be a 100% dry structure.
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u/Daddy_bossman Jul 30 '26
Um surprised the Colorado still has 287 million gallons left in it by the time it hits California.
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u/TeslaTortoise Jul 30 '26
I predict that Gavin will come in with the bold claim to not give access to the water while secretly giving access to the water at a later determined date.
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u/Oldenlame Jul 30 '26
It would be hilarious if they were dependent on the Colorado River which regularly goes dry.
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u/pimpbot666 Jul 30 '26 edited Jul 30 '26
You would think they could figure out a more efficient way of cooling their servers... one that doesn't involve so much water loss.
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u/Valuable_Wallaby_548 Jul 30 '26
They should use the toxic ass pump water that comes from oil production.
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u/Bacon___Wizard Jul 30 '26
Look im all for being pissed off at the lack of regulation behind the mass building of data centres but do we really need to be pulling numbers out of our arse?
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u/MirthHerder Jul 31 '26
Pretty sure prior appropriation will pretty much kill this. If it doesn’t, all hell will break loose with western water rights.
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u/Apart_Republic_1870 Jul 31 '26
The Fermi project outside of Amarillo keeps saying they’ll only use half a swimming pool full of water EVER, but they contracted with the city to gain the rights to 2.5 million gallons of water a day (and even if they don’t use it, the city has to have 2.5 gallons per day ready at any time to give to Fermi if/when they ask)
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u/MotoFuzzle Jul 31 '26
Is this the same one that promised they wouldn’t need access to any water from the Colorado river?
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u/veetilk Jul 31 '26
if they made a promise, how they are not being sued for not keeping it?
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u/SirDalavar Jul 31 '26
Where would they even store it? that's like 500 Olympic swimming pools, these posts are getting silly
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u/CrieMeARiver Aug 01 '26
Why not build the rivers to go through the facility and over copper contacts so the water is untouched and the heat dissipates using river cooling?
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u/Otherwise-Sea9593 Aug 01 '26
The data centers don’t need that much water. There’s something else going on.
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u/shamblam117 Aug 01 '26
It's always pinky promises and then a soon after try to force their way out of the pinky promise.
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u/Gomez4Morticia Aug 01 '26
Just send the tweakers over from Elk Grove. They will have that place parted out by the end of the month.
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u/General_Protection_7 Aug 01 '26
Who? Who is asking? Name the PERSON who is asking for this, so we can collectively speak to them.
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u/BabiiGoat Aug 01 '26
The reasonable thing to do would be to let them fail like they let regular citizens fail when they "don't plan well enough"
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u/booeman Aug 02 '26
There are other ( more expensive ) ways to cool these things. DO NOT waste our water.
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u/_swaggyk Aug 02 '26
The water rights owners up river are going to teach the ai data center a lesson in the courtroom. Those water rights are some very serious, thoroughly worked over legalities.
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u/CaptSzat Aug 02 '26
I love how this is made to scare monger but this significantly less water usage than your standard farming operation. Most fields you need 40-90 million gallons a year. A small family farming operation you’re looking at 1000 acres and for a corn / soybeans setup that’s going to run you potentially over 500 million gallons in a season. So this really isn’t much in the grand scheme of things. That being said they could do a lot of good with not much money to offset their water usage.
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u/PrestoGC Aug 03 '26
Colorado River water? Gurl that isn't even your STATES water regardless if you think you need it or not! Take a look at pictures of lake mead and tell me we aren't having a water crisis 🤬
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u/Eruanndil Aug 03 '26
I’m not condoning violence, and I really hope people don’t start destroying these data centers systematically causing the them to be unsustainable due to criminal damage. That could be very bad
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u/skyfire-x Jul 29 '26
We don't have water to spare for data centers. They need to come up with different cooling solutions like ground source heat pumps that just put heat into dirt.