Good. So no data centres.
Britain ‘Does Not Have Enough Water’ for Planned AI Data Centre Boom
Submitted 2 days ago by okwithmydecay@leminal.space to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
Comments
Corporal_Punishment@feddit.uk 2 days ago
saltesc@lemmy.world 2 days ago
This is Britain we’re talking about. The UK notoriously makes awful decisions all the time. They’ll go ahead.
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 2 days ago
What are you talking about, plebe? No more showers for you!
echodot@feddit.uk 2 days 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.
iocase@lemmy.zip 1 day 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)
Teknikal@anarchist.nexus 2 days ago
Surveillance centres are how I’m going to refer to them from now on I think, doesn’t even make any sense otherwise.
givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 days 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.
yakko@feddit.uk 2 days ago
Setting the table for water wars
mikenurre@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Billionaires do not care about the plebs’ demands for water. They never did.
SouthEndSunset@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Plebs don’t need luxuries.
Semjeza@fedinsfw.app 2 days ago
Or even essentials.
The capitalist class’ll charge for air as soon as they can.
Alaskaball@hexbear.net 2 days ago
Sounds like the peasants will have to keep a stiff upper lip then, wot!
ToiletFlushShowerScream@piefed.world 2 days ago
And so sets the first domino leading to the water wars of our future.
pdxfed@lemmy.world 2 days ago
How could there not be enough water one wonders?
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 1 day 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.
sirico@feddit.uk 2 days ago
Just add more hose pipe bans and blame the tax payer for the low river levels
Malyca@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Jfc how hard is it to pass a law requiring a closed loop system? Ban evaporation and you’re good.
AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 2 days 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.
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 days 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.
NickwithaC@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I see no problem here.
blazeknave@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I sold glycol and grey water data centers 20 yrs ago. Can someone eli5 why water is the crux of the consumption?
Diurnambule@jlai.lu 2 days 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.
scratchee@feddit.uk 1 day 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
DarkCloud@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Can’t they just use rust proof pipes and sea water?
ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 2 days ago
That would cost too much money for the poor companies.
WittyProfileName2@hexbear.net 2 days 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.
BigMacHole@thelemmy.club 2 days ago
Which means the Residents will have to RATION their Water Usage going Forward!
-Britain’s Government!
Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 2 days ago
One cup of tea in the morning and one in the evening should be enough.
ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 2 days 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.
blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
There’s already hosepipe bans
HerbGrower@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
Only in some areas, no restrictions where I live fortunately. Just dumped a couple hundred litres on some crops I am growing.
danielquinn@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Well we are in the midst of a massive drought.