Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e...
by tptacek on Sunday October 04, 2026 @04:34PM
(#49957542)
Even that 765 is like 0.04% of the water needed to irrigate Nebraska's ethanol corn crop alone. And ethanol is basically an agricultural proof-of-work function.
Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e...
by bpodgursky on Sunday October 04, 2026 @06:57PM
(#49958809)
Also even in the totally fake scenario where that water completely evaporates, it's just gonna rain on Iowa a bit more.
Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e...
by rtpg on Sunday October 04, 2026 @07:56PM
(#49959217)
I guess it has to be said: it is not guaranteed that the water rains in the "right" spots for it to be useful freshwater again anymore. Dumb example: maybe the wind currents mean that the water simply comes back down downstream.
One shouldn't assume that evaporated water comes back into the system in the place you want it to. Water management orgs try to reduce loss from evaporation for a reason!
Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e...
by bpodgursky on Sunday October 04, 2026 @08:05PM
(#49959271)
OK sure but this is like defense in depth. It's a negligible amount of water, most of it doesn't evaporate, and most of what does rains somewhere it's useful anyway. The actual damage here is microscopic.
Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e...
by tptacek on Sunday October 04, 2026 @11:30PM
(#49960393)
You're literally on a thread just a comment or two from the water cost of producing ethanol. Why are you still talking about data center water evaporation? This is morally equivalent to worrying about the water consumption of Slip-N-Slides. Everything is a rounding error compared to agricultural misuse of water.
Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e...
by rtpg on Monday October 05, 2026 @12:07AM
(#49960565)
Maybe I was replying to the comment I was replying to and not to the top-level comment.
Don't you have a company to found or run or whatever? What are you doing in here?
Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e...
by grebc on Sunday October 04, 2026 @04:44PM
(#49957621)
You can’t eat your algorithm.
So while pointing to agriculture and saying look there - those guys & gals way more than us it’s a red herring because we need food.
Sure improve efficiency of ag, but a better comp for water usage should be made. Reasonable people tune out.
Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e...
by arccy on Sunday October 04, 2026 @04:51PM
(#49957709)
you can't eat ethanol either, you burn it to create more global warming
Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e...
by logicprog on Sunday October 04, 2026 @04:52PM
(#49957719)
That's why they talked about ethanol.
> However, using a computer cursor to highlight the redacted text box in the report to DWEE, then copying and pasting it into a separate document reveals that *Agate LLC* is reporting 52.65 megawatts of electricity during peak electrical demand and 13.299 megagallons of water between cooling towers, evaporative systems and site operations in the last year. That totals out to 13 million gallons of water.
> For context, 13 million gallons is enough to fill around 20 Olympic-size swimming pools, and is less than half of what the City of Lincoln reports using on Sept. 29.
> The *six* data centers reporting as of Sept. 30 show a total use of 765 million gallons of water last year, enough water to fill 1,159.93 Olympic-size swimming pools.
> More improper redaction shows that the data center using the most water annually is *Fireball Group LLC*, the Google Data Center in Papillion. Fireball LLC reports 547.88 megagallons for their 2025 Annual Water Consumption.