> If they take the water from sources which are already scarce, the impact will be harsh.
Surprised I had to scroll down this far to see this mentioned.
The water use argument is highly local and depends on where we are building these data centers. Are you building in the great lakes region with plenty of fresh water and no water scarcity issues (yet)? Ok fine.
But we aren't building there. We're building in Arizona, Nevada, Nebraska, Iowa putting further stress in an area that water scarcity is already an issue, or soon going to become one due to long term drought conditions. Or Texas, which already has problems with their power grid.
We're building in these locations because they're cheap. If we're going do to this, we need to not let the bottom line be the sole driving decision of data center locations. If it's not profitable to build elsewhere, don't build it until you've figured out how to make it efficient enough to where it is profitable.
Surprised I had to scroll down this far to see this mentioned.
The water use argument is highly local and depends on where we are building these data centers. Are you building in the great lakes region with plenty of fresh water and no water scarcity issues (yet)? Ok fine.
But we aren't building there. We're building in Arizona, Nevada, Nebraska, Iowa putting further stress in an area that water scarcity is already an issue, or soon going to become one due to long term drought conditions. Or Texas, which already has problems with their power grid.
We're building in these locations because they're cheap. If we're going do to this, we need to not let the bottom line be the sole driving decision of data center locations. If it's not profitable to build elsewhere, don't build it until you've figured out how to make it efficient enough to where it is profitable.