AI Will Consume as Much Water as a Billion People By 2030, UN Report Estimates

9 hours ago by Viking_Hippie to c/aboringdystopia

The water footprint of AI data centers by 2030 will equal the water needs of 1.3 billion people, the UN report found.
Bishma 17 points 9 hours ago

And all of it will be laced with PFAS forever.

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DarkCloud 5 points 8 hours ago

Why? What happens with PFAS and AI? Or do you just mean PFAS in general?

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Bishma 7 points 8 hours ago

The water used in datacenter cooling has PFAS added to prevent corrosion.

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nul9o9 3 points 8 hours ago

Isnt that water evaporated? Does PFAS stick around steam?

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Bishma 2 points 7 hours ago

The majority are low volatility and stay in the plumping, and a certain amount of the water that goes through the evaporators (a little under a tenth generally, I think) is flushed through (usually into the local water treatment system) with as a more concentrated solution. Some PFAS are volatile enough to ride the water vapor up and eventually fallout again.

Edit: I forgot, some types still legal in the US are volatile enough to not fallout, and instead become strong greenhouse gases.

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DarkCloud 2 points 8 hours ago

Apparently the F in PFAS is for flourine, which doesn't evaporate off with the water. PFAS stay behind.

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Xaphanos 2 points 7 hours ago

Not in my building. We use closed-loop, RO, continuously filtered, deionized water. Like all of the others my company runs.

Whats your source?

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Bishma 5 points 7 hours ago path: 0 24387283 24387635 24387928 24389018 24389158, hotness: undefined, score: 5, children: 0
victorz 1 point 5 hours ago

Good comment for asking for source. Also good on them for delivering.

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avidamoeba 4 points 6 hours ago

Wait what, why PFAS? Cooling towers evaporate the water, no?

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gravitas_deficiency 5 points 5 hours ago

I swear to god, the powers that be are legitimately trying to fucking kickstart ecoterrorism

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webghost0101 3 points 8 hours ago

Is this a conversion of or without the power costs?

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EnderofGames 5 points 7 hours ago

The water footprint comes from cooling and powering the data centers, and the land footprint comes from the energy infrastructure and supply chains that go into building and running them.

Addressing AI’s environmental impact won’t be as straightforward as transitioning to greener sources of power, the report warns. Ditching coal in favor of bioenergy could slash carbon emissions associated with electricity costs by 70 percent, but cause the water footprint to surge by 30 times, and the land footprint by 100 times.

Assuming this is what you are asking, the water consumption (and land footprint) is calculated from all power use.

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desmosthenes 2 points 4 hours ago

they’ll go bankrupt before then

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