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Comment by quietbritishjim | Hacker News Reader

Water pumped into a field only to drain back into the soil cannot be equated with "recycled". If the crop wasn't there, would it have been sensible to pump the water there for "recycling" purposes? Are we regularly pumping water into the middle of dry areas for no reason? Of course not. Almost all of that water is being effectively discarded and it's a huge waste, which, no, you do not see at data centres.

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Because aquifers and water tables don't exist

Yeah you’re right, feeding people is just a huge waste.

Something like 1% of corn grown in the U.S. is used to feed people directly. The majority of it is used to inefficiently make gasoline (via ethanol) or plastic, because farm subsidies make it profitable.

And growing at that scale makes that 1% super affordable as a food source. all these 'we need AI data centers at crazy huge scales' people suddenly don't understand scale when it comes to feeding the brokies.

Subsidizing ethanol doesn’t seem like an efficient way to subsidize food for poor people- that’s why programs like SNAP exist

I agree. I’m pro-data center (or at least not against), pro-farm, and anti-ethanol. Ethanol is a scam.

While ethanol requirements are a hand out to corn farmers, it’s false to say the majority goes into gas and plastic, an equal share (~40%) goes to animal feed.

I never said that. The comment I replied to seemed to imply that water used to grow crops is used very efficiently, or at least as efficiently as water used for data centers. That is clearly not true so I objected. That is all.

I truly don’t understand how you could think that. It’s literally water, from the earth, to which it returns for recycling. Great that data centers “recycle” water, but earth is significantly better at that than google. Fun fact, water that evaporates becomes clouds and rain! Seems pretty infinitely efficient to me, unless you look at a tiny section of what is not a closed system.

Growing food on a scale that makes it affordable to and reduces hunger for the plebes? That's a waste according to AI bros. Good luck with your crime bots, no jobs, no real music, hunger for the masses propganda. Should be a real winner.

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