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Comment by thyristan | Hacker News Reader

> There’s an acute water shortage in The Netherlands right now. When I open BlueSky, everyone is talking about water being increasingly wasted on cooling data centres. And for what? To generate more AI shit.

Ah, the water-use BS again. In Europe, other than in the US, water use for data centers is strictly regulated. You cannot just do open-loop cooling and use a tap-water -> chiller -> sewer line. Things have to be closed-loop so there is no water consumption beyond the initial filling. The only thing you could get away with is to mist your outdoor units on the one or two hottest days per year. But even that is getting more and more restricted.

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I have a friend (engineer) working on a data center in Texas. It is closed loop. What’s interesting is the chillers have so much condensation that they pump it out to sprinklers which water the desert which now has grass growing. So at least water doesn’t seem to be as big of an objection now. Power though? Still a problem.

> Power though? Still a problem.

I've long suspected that monied interests are seeding social media with weak arguments about water as a distraction, and people mindlessly re-share that as part of their identity. Then the other half can come along and "correct" them while the main issue of power is forgotten. Social media gets engagement, and capital gets its data centers.

It's the same tired pattern we've seen for a long time now in politics, and they keep rolling it out because it works.

It doesn't even have to be monied interests. Media as a whole is getting severely disrupted by AI and they (somewhat understandably) see the technology as being built on top of their content without recompense. As such they will latch on to any topic -- supported or otherwise -- that lets them push a negative narrative.

On the flip side a lot of people's jobs are likely being threatened by the technology, so there is sizeable receptive audience already.

They don't need any more incentive or backing from monied interests, really. However I'm also pretty sure a lot of players are engaging in submarine warfare as well (https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html).

> They don't need any more incentive or backing from monied interests

Because they are the monied interests.

What they don't want is for the conversation to turn from people blindly rejecting data centers (for any reason) to people saying wait a minute, let's embrace technology/AI but let users benefit from every aspect instead of being capital's bitch every second the day.

Noise is also legit.

Data centers being built by me - more than 20. A friend of mine works for an audio engineering firm and shared that the tech does not really exist yet to do more than get the modern data centers within city noise ordinances. You are going to hear them for a couple miles. As if I needed convincing he was legit - last week his coworker got flown out to my neck of the woods to conduct a study on the planned DC's in my town.

The opposition, though. They are not armed with sensible facts when they show up to city council meetings. They are armed with clickbaity headlines. I joined the local DC opposition group to offer advice on how to get the city to take them more seriously and was quickly banned for talking sense.

It’s regulated in the US too. You need well and consumption permits before using tons of water. Water usage is approved

Just like xAI was regulated to not run more than 15 gas turbines? US lets companies get away with breaking things and punishes wrongdoing at most with a fine that's less than the money that was made by breaking the rules, so US regulations sort of don't matter.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/jan/15/elon-musk...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_(data_center)

Yeah that does really suck. Are the fines just a cost of doing business fine? :(

On paper you can't do this, but in practice the fines for doing so (if they ever even reach your mailbox after you've bribed the local politicians, which you've done to get your center built in the first place) are just a cost of business. There are plenty of videos of people who live near data centers who now have sputtering water from their sinks, or water that comes out brown and unusable.

Source?

the problem with closed-loop is that you always have a system to discharge to sewer in case of emergency. And guess what? It's cheaper to do it regularly to save on electricity. So it's becoming a regular practice to build closed-loop systems to bypass opposition and have a de-facto open-loop. Never trust tech oligarchs.

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