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Britain ‘Does Not Have Enough Water’ for Planned AI Data Centre Boom

⁨206⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨okwithmydecay@leminal.space⁩ to ⁨unitedkingdom@feddit.uk⁩

https://novaramedia.com/2026/07/21/britain-does-not-have-enough-water-for-planned-ai-data-centre-boom/

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Comments

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  • BigMacHole@thelemmy.club ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Which means the Residents will have to RATION their Water Usage going Forward!

    -Britain’s Government!

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    • Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      One cup of tea in the morning and one in the evening should be enough.

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      • ThePyroPython@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Thing is tea will be the last thing they ration, putting ANY limit, even as rediculously high as 20 a day, would cause riots in the street.

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    • blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      There’s already hosepipe bans

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      • HerbGrower@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Only in some areas, no restrictions where I live fortunately. Just dumped a couple hundred litres on some crops I am growing.

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      • danielquinn@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Well we are in the midst of a massive drought.

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    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      #LabourIsForThePeople

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  • Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Good. So no data centres.

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    • saltesc@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      This is Britain we’re talking about. The UK notoriously makes awful decisions all the time. They’ll go ahead.

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    • Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      What are you talking about, plebe? No more showers for you!

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  • Teknikal@anarchist.nexus ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Surveillance centres are how I’m going to refer to them from now on I think, doesn’t even make any sense otherwise.

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    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      It’s also important people understand it’s the same as “the cloud”.

      That’s how the rollout started: “why pay for a hard drive when you can have it anywhere”?

      Too many people fell for that, so the corps bought up all the hard drives, now storage is more expensive than when “the cloud” rolled out

      They’re using startup accounting against us, they’ll buy up all the storage/compute power so consumers have no option but to go thru them.

      The only way to win is wide scale boycotts till their investors give up. Don’t use anything you don’t own to store data.

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  • yakko@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Setting the table for water wars

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  • mikenurre@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Billionaires do not care about the plebs’ demands for water. They never did.

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    • SouthEndSunset@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Plebs don’t need luxuries.

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      • Semjeza@fedinsfw.app ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Or even essentials.

        The capitalist class’ll charge for air as soon as they can.

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  • echodot@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Ok I have a solution. Don’t build the data centres then, I’m ok with not having data centres in the country or anywhere else really, but I’ll settle for them not being here.

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    • iocase@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Or you can cool them using raw seawater since year around it’s cold AF and is well below the minimum temp needed. It’s just cheaper and less permits to use drinking water in evaporative coolers… And that’s besides the point too, since do we really need more AI datacenters when there isn’t a silver bullet use case? It’s been 5 years and there’s still no killer app for AI, just vague hand waving at certain jobs (which also quietly rehire their staff months later for some odd reason)

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  • Alaskaball@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Sounds like the peasants will have to keep a stiff upper lip then, wot!

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  • ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    And so sets the first domino leading to the water wars of our future.

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  • pdxfed@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    How could there not be enough water one wonders?

    observer.co.uk/…/watchdog-accused-of-giving-away-…

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  • sirico@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Just add more hose pipe bans and blame the tax payer for the low river levels

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  • Malyca@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Jfc how hard is it to pass a law requiring a closed loop system? Ban evaporation and you’re good.

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    • AnyOldName3@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Big data centres can’t dissipate the amount of heat they generate without evaporating water, so a ban like that would effectively be a ban on that kind of data centre. Obviously, the companies lobbying for data centres to get built wouldn’t be happy about that.

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      • HerbGrower@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Surely they could, just need a bigger heat exchanger. Or even place them near the sea and use that as a heat exchanger. Evaporative cooling also isn’t going to work as well in the UK where humidity is high.

        But IIRC a lot of this water use stuff is kinda sketchy calculations. Building them takes a lot of water due to all the concrete but it is a one off cost and just as bad as building any other large building.

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      • NickwithaC@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        I see no problem here.

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  • blazeknave@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    I sold glycol and grey water data centers 20 yrs ago. Can someone eli5 why water is the crux of the consumption?

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    • Diurnambule@jlai.lu ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Because you t is cheap and government pay for infrastructure and maintenance. If these company would have to pay for the public goods they use none would be profitable.

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      • blazeknave@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        Isn’t grey water cheaper?

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    • scratchee@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      Better solutions have always and will always exist, but they cost more to implement.

      Piping grey water to a data center either means placing it somewhere with an appropriate pipe with appropriate filtration performed, or building a new pipe/filtration. Drinking water in comparison is easily accessible anywhere. They don’t care about the impact or even the per unit cost, they just want to build on the cheap and take advantage of local infrastructure, and they figure in this ai boom the actual running costs are irrelevant because ai companies will pay for anything that works, efficiency be damned

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      • blazeknave@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I was thinking about onsite recycling if that makes a difference. But yeah, it makes sense the path of least resistance is what you described.

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  • DarkCloud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Can’t they just use rust proof pipes and sea water?

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    • ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      That would cost too much money for the poor companies.

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  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Sure there is. Just take it from the people and charge the ridiculous prices for what they do use. Voila, plenty of datacenter water.

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  • WittyProfileName2@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Don’t worry, if they need more water they can always force another community outta their homes to make a reservoir outta their valleys.

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  • NoForwadSlashS@piefed.social ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Do not become addicted to water

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