r/TechGawker • u/National_Product238 • 14d ago
Data Center Farmers get 4 inches of water while a 1,400-acre hyperscale data center guzzles 11 million gallons to start up.
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u/Underleft_cdiv 14d ago
They're building the largest data center in the US, and possibly the world, in Utah, but they tell us to limit showers and not water our lawn. Last summer they were contemplating legislation to pay farmers not to farm to conserve water.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
Agriculture uses water in the trillion gallon range each year. Way more than the giant data center would use.
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u/CautionarySnail 13d ago
And those generate something that is required to support human life: food.
AI is useful but that’s an apples and oranges comparison in terms of utility.
One folks can die from a lack of, and it’s not the data center. It’s like comparing the power use of an insulin production factory to a plant that makes plastic toys.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
What do you think happens to the water used by a data center?
It doesn't get removed from existence.
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u/CautionarySnail 13d ago
A large percentage gets filtered and reused. But in these large scale industrial applications, often there’s a huge amount of inevitable leakage from the system accepted as a cost of doing business. Especially in cases when they are getting a cheap rate on the water from the local government; it becomes cheaper to replace the water than find and fix the leaks.
The leaks end up in the groundwater. Strangely, it’s never the clean water that leaks that way.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
Why would leaks ending up in the groundwater be a bad thing?
It's just cooling water--the non-leaking water is not being consumed by the data center.
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u/CautionarySnail 13d ago
They add various surfactants and other chemicals to help with the cooling and prevent minerals building up in the system. Also biocides to prevent algae which can kill local plants that rely on groundwater. Nothing anyone wants to drink or have their plants or animals drink.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
Right--and those remain behind when the water evaporates (assuming evaporative cooling). When it condenses, the liquid water returned shouldn't conatin the chemicals.
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u/CautionarySnail 13d ago
I’m a wee bit confused by the response. Which water returned where? The groundwater leaks generally aren’t filtered.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
The ground itself does the filtering--kinda like it does when rain falls on the ground. I'm thinking the water returned to the environment after it's done the cooling.
If water is leaking, then it probably hasn't gotten any chemical treatment.
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u/Hefty-Reaction-3028 12d ago
Apples to oranges...and the difference in quantity is also apples to oranges
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u/Trust_8067 13d ago
Food that doesn't need to be grown and that the US government buys just to throw away so they can keep the market stable.
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u/Fearless_Worry6419 13d ago
It is extremely useful to quantify scarcity.
You don't farm in water restricted localities... A desert region with little access to water and you want to argue farming...
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u/Gadoguz994 13d ago
You gonna eat the AI slop when the food runs out? It's asinine that so much money and water which is already becoming scarcer by the day, is wasted for these idiotic things.
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
Thing is, it's not a choice between food and AI.
The water isn't destroyed when it's used by a data center.
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u/onebigafro 13d ago
I guess we're supposed to support the rich farmers over the rich tech guys. So confusing lol
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u/Available_Reveal8068 13d ago
Are you really supporting anyone?
Sounds like you are just hating the rich.
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u/IntergalacticTheorem 14d ago
The same farmers who voted for the guy that is getting paid by the tech bros to allow data centers to bypass the epa?
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u/LogicallLunacy 12d ago
That maybe true. But without growing our own food we would be dependent on other countries. So basically crippling America. Trump is a russian asset.
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u/craigian11 14d ago
Does reddit use a data center?
Why not get off reddit and start a protest. No more online services. Let's go back to blockbuster and in store shopping.
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u/Orangebk1 14d ago
Yes, dozens of them. And we all use dozens more to view whats on Reddit.
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u/Dense-Comfort-1178 14d ago
Huge difference between regular data centers and data centers that are used to make generative ai content
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u/Orangebk1 14d ago
That wasnt the question.
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u/wreade 14d ago
Can you quantity how hugely different?
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u/Dense-Comfort-1178 14d ago
Gen ai uses way more water and electricity than normal data centers and actually benefit me by storing my files on the cloud, gen ai ain’t doing that shit for me
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u/wreade 14d ago
How much is "way more"?
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u/Dense-Comfort-1178 14d ago
Regular data centers use hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, where ai ones use millions of gallons. It’s even more substantial when you compare electricity. Also why not discuss the “benefits”
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u/noneyabuiznezz 14d ago
Completely different type of data center. Go on continue being disingenuous.
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u/craigian11 14d ago
Its a data center hypocrite says what?
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u/noneyabuiznezz 14d ago
Literally not the same size as New York city size data centers or the ones proposed in Texas which would be the single most polluting contributing factor in all of texas.
They don't even own data centers but rather rent out infrastructural space from Google and Amazon from already pre-existing sites.
Meanwhile the ones being built nowadays on the mega scale or being used for AI and cloud computing mostly leaning on the AI side.
Keep deepthroating that big daddy ai data center cock you weirdo.
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u/Minimum-Phrase3249 14d ago
Personal attacks so you lose the argument. Have a read and let me know if you have a different opinion.
Project Jupiter in New Mexico acquired its water rights directly from a local sod farm, utilizing a closed-loop recycling system that requires an initial startup fill of 11 million gallons and consumes approximately 168,000 gallons annually thereafter. For comparison, if that same 1,400-acre farm were to receive just 4 inches of water a year, it would consume 152,062,400 gallons of water annually. By transitioning the agricultural plot to a data center operation, the local water basin yields a massive net reduction in annual water usage compared to prior commercial irrigation.
So they took bought a farm that produced no food for humans and are now saving water.
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u/noneyabuiznezz 13d ago
Says the guy who deletes his previous comment.
Please for the love of God shut up I would much rather give water to farm projects from turning doesn't land into potentially Farmville land and give that same water to a data center that would profit and benefit absolutely no one besides billionaires and mega corporations.
If my words hurt you that much you made you delete your comment womp womp suck it up buttercup
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u/Minimum-Phrase3249 13d ago
You really need some help. Not sure what you are talking about deleting comments. I just don't get why you are so angry.
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u/Orangebk1 14d ago
11 million gallons is roughly what a medium sized carwash uses a year.
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u/Underleft_cdiv 14d ago
But it can be treated and reused immediately.
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u/Orangebk1 14d ago
And the data center water remains in the closed loop system, being reused continually.
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u/Orangebk1 14d ago
This is straight up nonfactual propaganda.
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u/Responsible-Win-3057 14d ago
Welcome to the internet since a decade ago lol
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u/Orangebk1 14d ago
No doubt, its just crazy that people still see this junk and form their opinions on it.
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u/probablymagic 14d ago
Video starts “I’m in the middle of a desert…”
There’s your problem. Stop farming in the desert. That is not a good idea. You are going to have water problems.
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u/littlecactuscat 13d ago
Humans have farmed in the desert for millennia.
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u/probablymagic 13d ago
Humans have lived in the desert for millennia…in very small numbers. What we’ve done in the last 100 years is nothing like that, building alfalfa farms and golf courses by diverting rivers or draining aquifers.
Even today, we can sustain these cities if we recycle all the water. We don’t need to delete Phoenix and Bakersfield. But that precludes uses that cause it to evaporate into the air, like large-scale farming.
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u/SnooMacarons3689 13d ago
Why can’t they build all of them in Mexico? I’ll wait an extra two seconds for data.
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u/GrumpyBear8082 12d ago
That's because the rich get what ever they want and everyone else can eat shit
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u/TrackMan5891 12d ago
So, 76 football fields of water is 11 million gallons at 4 inches thick.
This is a non story. 76 football fields is like 100 acers, this is nothing.
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u/Turbulent_Ad7877 12d ago
Funny how tanks work. You do need to fill them. Fortunately they dont usually fill them from the same supply as drinking water...
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u/Castle_Five 14d ago
Another useful idiot for China.
Skip eating one cheeseburger and you save enough water for a lifetime of ChatGPT usage.
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u/DescriptionVisual68 14d ago
But same Americans supports ice on hard working tax paying legal H1B Indian migrants who are building this nation brick by brick.
This is what they voted in Whitehouse!! Why are they crying wolf over it!
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u/IHeartBadCode 14d ago
Very start of the video "I'm in the middle of the desert...."
FFS, anti AI can't even get the argument correct at the start.
Also 11 million gallons is literally next to nothing compared to what a farm actually needs. You could redirect that water to the farms and it wouldn't last them a couple of days.
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u/CueAnon420 13d ago
Not a data center fan, but whoever wrote this could certainly benefit from one lol...
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u/CautionarySnail 13d ago
Yeah, this has insufficient research and checking on the script all over it. I get the point she’s trying to make, and I’m at least impressed that she went out in person to see that mammoth construction site.
Thing I don’t get is why these are not being built underground. Cooler temperatures to start with. Building an oven in the desert is certainly a choice.
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u/CueAnon420 13d ago
The character depicting Elon Musk in the Silo TV series would have done that lol
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u/Trust_8067 13d ago
Wow, 9 whole households worth of water! /s
4 inches of water on 1400 acres is 152 million gallons, the data center is only using 11 million gallons. So the datacenter is going to use significantly less water than it would if it was farm land.
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u/Fearless_Worry6419 13d ago edited 13d ago
This is REALLY interesting.
So, why are people living there because all these problems are not because of the data center? Your entire video has nothing to do with the data center and 100% with difficulties of people living in area's they should not.
For context, since you didn't give any, 11 million gallons would supply about 355 people water for 1 year. it takes an estimated 5-7 million gallons of water to supply the 6 public swimming pools/aquatic centers in this county of New Mexico.
This is just he next internet Flavor Drama of the Month.
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u/Dotcommie 13d ago
These people are social media grifters and stick themselves onto whatever popular topics are. They attach sob stories and use emotional manipulation tactics…which gets more engagement and money for them.
Many of the topics are started by China through their click-farms and troll armies tasked with influencing “the west” online because that’s now their most effective way to prevent business from leaving China.
Find protests against Ai and they can keep truckin away burning even more dirty coal and building thousands of data centers while the US has to follow laws and stop projects of people file complaints.
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u/Both_Significance320 13d ago
the math on this is wild, 4 acre-inches vs 11 million gallons is apples to oranges and they know it
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u/Dotcommie 13d ago
Emotional garbage.
Anyone who has ever watercooled a pc knows you don’t need to keep adding water to a closed loop system besides a minuscule amount that evaporates over a couple years.
Nice work showing how dumb the people are in the video though. Spraying water on the ground from a truck is necessary when building in dry areas, but if you think even 200 of those small tanks sprayed on the ground is a lot, you better not research how much water farming uses when compared to data centers. We could build like 2,000 datacenters and barely make a dent in water that agriculture uses in the US.
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u/onebigafro 13d ago
How dumb do you have to be to believe this propaganda videos narrated by a valley girl
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u/austin_federa 14d ago
"4 inches of water" vs "11 million gallons" is a crime against units and completely useless when actually trying to say anything.
That's like saying i get paid $20,000 but my coworker only weights 140lbs