re: #180 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus

It’s a story from 2021, e.g. lexology.com

There are similar stories from 2020.

This use of water by data centers is getting more attention as climate change takes a bigger bite out of fresh water supplies.

AI is expected to demand even more water for cooling.

This is a classic case of economics: demand for one item has consequences in another sector of the economy.

This problem also underlies the drive to more efficient integrated circuits. And that’s why Apple took the lead with their M series chips which use much less energy than the Intel chips.

Goodyear, AZ, has a Microsoft data center that is draining Arizona water. Apparently it’s guaranteed 56 million gallons of drinking water to run the damn place.

futurism.com

Mesa, AZ (where I live) guaranteed 1 million gallons of water a day to Google to get a data center. Google claims it’s going to use “air cooling”, but (per the article above), that only works when the air temp is below 85F. Guess what? It’s going to be in the 90s this week.

12news.com

Oh, and speaking of the eclipse here, it looks like even our partial eclipse is going to be a bust. It’s overcast.