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Comment by thevinter | Hacker News Reader

Irrespective of how this number is calculated, whether is blue/green water etc here is some comparison data for context, since I personally think that hearing big numbers without any point of reference is pointless.

Annual withdrawals (2015)

- Thermoelectric power: ~48.5 trillion gal

- Irrigation: ~43.1 trillion gal

- Public supply: ~14.2 trillion gal

- Self-supplied industrial: ~5.4 trillion gal

- Aquaculture: ~2.76 trillion gal

- Mining: ~1.46 trillion gal

- Livestock: ~730 billion gal

- Total: ~117.5 trillion gal (322 Bgal/day)

Source: Estimated use of water in the United States in 2015: U.S. Geological Survey Circular - https://doi.org/10.3133/cir1441

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> Livestock: ~730 billion gal

This is a good illustration how cursed the datacenter topic has become when people go out of their minds on computer cooling while continuing to eat meat which lets be perfectly clear - is mostly for entertainment purposes. I had someone berate me for defending datacenter water use and their last post was literally a cheese burger.

Well the thing with the livestock is that you have to give a cow water.

Datacenters do not need water. It is just slightly cheaper for them than cooling with electricity.

Datacenters should be required by law to pay to build adequate power generation and infrastructure to pay for their consumption, and ideally in a way where it isn't a ghastly eyesore.

> Datacenters do not need water. It is just slightly cheaper for them than cooling with electricity.

As long as electricity at least partially produced using fossil fuel I would prefer data-centers to use as little electricity as possible. There are regions which are getting plenty of rainfall on average (which can be collected and stored) or were getting some water from rivers will have negligible ecological impact.

But currently DC operators have little incentives to choose DC location based on outdoor temperature or water availability and there are plenty of DCs in hot and arid regions.

> there are plenty of DCs in hot and arid regions

Differences in air temperature are largely below the noise floor in terms of impact on data center cost. Slightly lower energy prices and other operational or capital costs are more than enough to offset significantly hotter climate. Arid climates improve evaporative cooling efficiency.

> Well the thing with the livestock is that you have to give a cow water.

you don't _need_ a cow though

As you don't _need_ a datacenter as well

Exactly. You also don't need to grow acres of grass in the desert to feed the cow, but we do that too.

Most folks have highly distorted views of how animal agriculture works. It's disgusting and insanely inefficient.

> Datacenters should be required by law to pay to build adequate power generation and infrastructure to pay for their consumption

I think we can all agree on this one yet this is not what's being argued in most discussions. What hangs up the discussion is the complexity of development e.g.: to build a datacenter it takes 1 year but to build energy infra it takes 5. So this complexity needs equally complex policy and people just don't have time for that when there's free range raging served right to your palm screen.

You don't need a law to force people to pay for resources they consume; basic economics already ensures that. If there are externalities not already accounted for by that (increased demand for water/electricity driving up costs for others, noise, "eyesores", etc.) you could pass laws to ensure those costs are paid by the responsible party but that's not a datacenter-specific issue.

How does that work in a market where you are bidding amongst other participants and capacity is constrained? Supply is limited and demand is growing, the market response is to charge more.

Well, just off the top of my head... if you wanted to treat the increased prices caused by the spike in demand as an externality (and I agree that's not exactly the right way to think of it, but people seem determined to in this case and I can't really fault them for that given the practical effects of such price increases) I think the way to do that would be to give existing consumers futures contracts for water for the next ~10 years proportional to their existing usage.

People could then either use the futures contracts to keep the price they pay for water the same as it was, or voluntarily reduce their water usage and sell the contracts to the datacenter for a profit. Same deal for power.

This would of course be a bit complicated for most people to manage, so maybe instead of giving consumers the contracts directly you could have some intermediary manage the contracts for them with approximately the same result.

Don't quote theoretical econ idealism at us when our actual electricity rates are going up 20% or more per year.

Increased demand absolutely DOES increase the cost both in theory and practice.

I... agree? Did you even read the comment you replied to?

Alas, we do, because in the case of water, basic economics are stymied by pre-existing water-rights laws that are batshit insane. As such, we need legislative action to (at minimum) clean up that mess.

While I agree fully with this part:

> Datacenters should be required by law to pay to build adequate power generation and infrastructure to pay for their consumption, and ideally in a way where it isn't a ghastly eyesore.

Fact is, almost nobody "needs" meat in their diet, and even if all meat eaters did actually need it rather than merely want it, there are meats which use less than the average quantity of water.

From the above stats, the mean American's loss of water due to unnecessary use of water for unnecessary meat raised in their territory, is about 43 times the mean American's loss of water due to the unnecessary water use of datacenters that are in their territory.

We do not need meat.

Datacenters have a readily available substitute to water if they just make less profit.

I'm not giving up my meat so that datacenters can use it for cooling, if that's what you're suggesting.

From the above stats, a 2.3% change to USA meat consumption, up or down, has the same impact as a 100% change to data centre water consumption, up or down.

If I read the USDA stats correctly, US red meat and poultry production went up about 5.6% from Jan-Jun 2025 to Jan-Jun 2026, i.e. the increased production of meat led to an increase in water use that was twice as much as the water use of all the data centres combined.

It's not quite that simple. Most people who reduce/eliminate meat consumption are going to substitute something else rather than eat less, and what they substitute may be just as water intensive as the meat they replace.

For example, if a person's meat diet is virtually all chicken (reasonable given prices lately), substituting the chicken for almonds is a net neutral change. Almonds use every bit as much water as chickens do.

Granted, that may be an extreme example, as almonds are one of the more water-intensive crops, and chicken is one of the most water-efficient meats. There will likely be decent water savings in many cases, but at the very least, anything a person substitutes for their existing meat diet is going to use some water as well.

Give up your meat consumption because it's more about societal excess than anything else.

Meat is and mostly always has been(in euro societies) a luxury item meant mostly for the rich.

Capitalism turned meat into a MUST HAVE item for keeping up with the Joneses.

We consume absolute insane amounts of meat nowadays, and we waste about half of it, just so people can feel good cuz theyre eating a high class excess meal.

Lol most people throughout history didn't eat much meat. It's wild how modern western people refuse to see how we'll destroy the planet trying to feed 8 billion people with the most inefficient method of creating calories(beef). The inefficiency IS THE POINT.

So? Many people are not willing to give up their cloud services either?

And there are other kinds of meat that cost less water to produce. I don't think someone who isn't willing to give up beef for chicken is at a higher moral ground than someone who wants cheap tokens.

We do not need more datacenters as well.

In fact many humans need meat because the proper plant protein simply cannot grow/exist in their area.

This is why we evolved to be omnivores. Basic biology laughs at your poorly-researched position.

I'm referring to the majority of the population that lives in modern developed areas.

True. I was going to hate the environmental destruction being wrought for the purpose of funneling more of our wealth to a handful billionaires who will use the AI against us, but then I remembered how bad meat eaters are for the plight of the common man, and now data centers don’t seem so bad after all.

> I had someone berate me for defending datacenter water use and their last post was literally a cheese burger.

I can imagine raising issues with a specific datacenter in a specific water-constrained location, but I agree that being vocally concerned about the teaspoons of water consumed to produce an AI response while being unconcerned with the thousands of gallons used to produce a cheeseburger seems like innumerate virtue signaling.

Most people do not see data centers benefiting them in any way but do benefit from eating meat (because they like it). Also, this is an additional water consumption that in a time when water resources are already strained in many areas for all those other uses mentioned.

An analogy would be if you have $5000 a month on income but spend $4950 on rent, utilities, insurance, food, etc. then its not hypocritical to say that you shouldn't give an additional $200 to the local billionaire because that's only a small percentage of what you spend on rent. 'Hey man, if you can afford to live indoors, the least you can do is go into debt for local billionaire to become even more billionairy'

Is this a "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" objection, where even the slightest bit of hypocrisy or impurity justifies rejecting the argument?

If a vegetarian, who became a vegetarian because of the high environmental impact of meat production, berates you for defending data center water use, would that convince you to change your mind?

What about a vegan, who also stopped flying and doesn't drive, and is organizing a protest to shut down the local golf course?

The datacenter topic is cursed because people are afraid of ai. People seized on water usage because it is a more legible and tractable focus for their fear.

Mr. Gotcha, is that you?

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

There would need to be some articulable upside to data centers, though. Even if we agree there should be less livestock, I don't see how that has any bearing on the data centers topic.

It's to put water usage in perspective. I think the best example is golf courses.

If you think datacenters are a waste of water and you want to do a global campaign to stop building / shutdown golf courses first, then your values don't really make sense.

Golf is pure leisure, and uses 531 gallons compared to 17.4 gallons a year.

Datacenters on the other hand, power the site we're using right now to discuss the "problem". You wouldn't be able to have this conversation without them.

Why aren't people screaming constantly about golf courses and pressuring to shut them down?

Why the focus on datacenters if the bigger win is staring you right in the face (if you're that concerned about water usage)?

It's not about the water.

I would get rid of every single golf course in the world if I could. One of the worst uses of land out there. Imagine the horrible, gross volume of herbicides each course uses to ensure that only the "correct" grass is growing over all those acres.

I assume HN runs on machines in a datacenter. The servers that serve my business also reside in a datacenter. I see lots of upsides to datacenters, and they've been around long before they were controversial.

And you own clothing that was made with child labor. You monster. Why do you love child labor so much?

Hyper scale data centers are absolutely not the same, stop with the hysterics. You know exactly what people are upset about: LLM companies.

yup, we need trillion bucks in capex to run HN so no compliants from me, I love HN

Yeah why would someone berate you for telling them to stop eating and support data centers? Gee why would someone get so emotional when told to stop enjoying food and help the billionaires make more money?

Are they stupid or something?

yeah people should just accept starting to feed on AI slop for sustenance instead of actual food! How dare they have a preference

calling it "actual food" is clearly misleading when majority of meat is used purely for entertainment not for survival sustenance. By that logic compute is "actual medicine" because some of compute is used for medicine?

> majority of meat is used purely for entertainment

Source of that inane statement?

US golf courses hit 531 billion gallons in 2024 (1.63 million acre-feet) https://www.gcsaa.org/who-we-are/media/news-release/2025-new...

Almond farming - ~1.5 trillion gal (1.1 gal per almond)

Holy shit, so much precious water used just for almond?

Only 0.5 trillion gallons is precious water, the rest is just regular water

I value almonds more than LLM slop.

I think most of the people who act like this are secretly using ChatGPT like a Republican on Grindr.

Yes I use LLMs at work because I'm "highly encouraged" to as a condition to keep my job. All I see is more paying customers finding more bugs and having a worse experience using our products.

You don't see the issues with your line of thinking? You get to absolve yourself of the responsibilities of your choice because "someone is making you" use it? How can you say you value almonds more than LLM slop when your individual choices don't reflect those values?

They live in a country where you are not allowed to change jobs.

Well let's not shit post so hastily because it's not my company. I don't have dominion over my peers, and I don't have authority to lead initiatives as worker. I do what they say or I get fired. It's pretty simple, this isn't a unique experience for the vast majority of workers either.

Also telling people to simply leave is very anti-human + anti-democratic. Workers should have the right to have a say in the company, they are the ones that do the work after all.

Telling people to simply leave just favors those with money compared to those without. There's also the whole you know... losing access to healthcare when quitting jobs; also IDK if you've been in a coma the last 3 years but the tech winter is still ongoing, LLM induced mania hasn't resulted in downstream companies hiring more.

I hate almonds and agree with you

I hate almonds and love LLMs.

Good context, but aren't many of your examples simply putting that water back into the ground? Also, where the water is taken from is the key issue. If this was ocean water nobody would care, but if it's Reston, VA that's a local issue.

For perspective, the total annual water consumption of all US data centers is about 100 days' water production of the nearby water treatment plant to Reston, VA. Or put differently, all of the US data centers can be comfortably supplied solely with the water from the next phase of expansion of said treatment plant (an upgrade of 75MGD).

"17 billion gallons of water a year" sounds like a lot of water, but it's really not.

I'm not sure what led you to believe that the water is being put back into the ground "simply" or otherwise but maybe you shouldn't be acting like it's a non-issue when you clearly don't understand the problem.

DCs are pumping the water through evaporative cooling towers because the latent heat of vaporizaton means there's a huge amount of heat sucked up in the phase change from liquid to vapor. None of the water is being "put back into the ground" except maybe that used during flushing and other maintenance.

"Dry" cooling exists, where there is a closed coolant or refrigerant loop run through radiators, but those require more power, which increases cost and limits how much power can be used for compute (but they also get the say "it makes us use more power, bad for the environment! We're being Green by using evaporative cooling!")

The water that evaporates during cooling does rain down somewhere else at some point.

It isn’t like the water magically disappears. It just gets turned into moisture in the air.

Though that can be very far away depriving the local environment or other industry of the water. Extra bad if that water is pumped up ground water.

No I'm saying that water used in mining likely goes back into the ground.

Then maybe you should have said that the first time.

The problem is that these comparisons do not have equal utility. Trying to compare them to AI datacenter consumption is equivalent to justifying a gambling habit on a fixed income because groceries consume plenty of dollars as well.

Right, but the utility goes in the other direction, not the one you’re maybe thinking.

Meat is basically optional, you don’t need meat to be healthy or happy. There are vegetarian body builders. Meat has, probably, negative value on most American’s lives, due to its contribution to heart disease.

That’s not to say meat isn’t tasty. It is. But from an objective standpoint, the value is ehhh.

Arguably, AI has much more value, and for 1/100th the water cost. Hey, that’s pretty good!

If I can afford to spend 10k$ on groceries every month then surely 10$ in gambling isn't all that bad?

> The problem is that these comparisons do not have equal utility.

That's just your opinion, though. I would prefer a purely vegerarian society with advanced AI that can cure cancer or discover new maths to society with meat and no AI.

Your stated preferences confirms that the listed items are not of equal utility. Clearly you value some over others.

You have to look at the local level, water isn’t distributed the same way around a country as large as the US. Some regions have no water problems while others have a lot of consumption and competition to get access to it

Yeah that's fair.

I haven't seen a single article doing that though (from either side) and I honestly think that nobody would even trust these companies at this point (Meta et al) to give an honest analysis anyways.

Agreed, reporting on anything technical like DCs is very surface level. Just some aggregated numbers and a list of grievances or random quotes from someone with conflict of interests

Yeah in a lot of areas water is the opposite of scarce, practically free, and your bill is 98% infrastructure fees.

Nice perspective. So even if all these data centers were built in the desert, it's entirely within the realm of possibility to transport 17B gallons of water, unlike the 43 trillion used for irrigation. Some back-of-the-napkin math:

- A truck holds 5000 gallons

- It would take 3.5 million trips to transport that much

- If each trip was 500 miles roundtrip, that's about 2 billion miles

- Trucks travel 140 billion miles each year in the US. That would add less than 2% to the total miles

- The trucking industry is about $1 trillion in revenue per year. So 2% of that is $20 billion total to transport 17 billion gallons. Or around $1 per gallon.

The report says that water consumption tripled due to AI datacenters, in 2023! Most of it was on electricity generation to support the datacenters.

But that's tripled of water use across all sectors due to datacenter buildout. So no "comparison" to other uses is needed.

EDIT: Ah, I did misread it. Sorry!

No, it doesn't.

It says that datacenters now use 3× the amount of water they used to use--it's specifically limited to that very, very narrow sector.

> But that's tripled of water use across all sectors due to datacenter buildout. So no "comparison" to other uses is needed.

You're saying almond farm water use tripled due to data center buildout? What other meaning of "all sectors" could make sense of this claim? The report clearly says 17 billion while all other sectors are in the trillions.

I don't hate data centers any less. That's 17B gallons wasted on something I don't care about and actively want less of.

womp womp

HN Thread with a whataboutism comment as top voted? Must be the datacenter water thingy again. It's always a rhyme of the same comment.

If you need to denigrate pure context as "whataboutism", then maybe your core argument is trash?

I mean, sure, lets not build datacenters that are 100% evaporation-cooled into each desert-oasis.

But if general water availability is your concern, than datacenters are so far down the priority list that any argument involving them is just laughable. And if you are against datacenters, then find a proper argument instead of making environmentalism look stupid.

Datacenter water usage exploded over the last year… “Here, look how much water gets used by everyone flushing their toilets.”

I don’t even care about that comparison. They’ll do whatever they’re going to do. But throwing around random numbers about water usage doesn’t make the point you think you’re making. It’s deflection, and nothing more. Not every random datapoint is context just because it uses the same metric.

It’s basically: “Frank is 8 years old and still poops his pants. So if he can do it, I can poop my pants too, Mom.”

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