Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and electricity usage

Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e... by cogman10 on Sunday October 04, 2026 @09:51PM (#49959849)

There's not.

The first problem, in order to reverse a chemical reaction, you need to provide at least the offsetting released energy of the initial reaction. That means for CO2 you need to provide at least as much energy as was released when the carbon oxidized in the first place.

The second problem is that the CO2 is diluted in the atmosphere. Consider the amount of energy needed to remove salt from ocean water, it's not simple.

It just takes a lot of energy to that what was done by burning fossils in the first place.

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Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e... by SoftTalker on Sunday October 04, 2026 @10:10PM (#49959945)

Maybe not. You don't need to chemically turn the CO2 back into hydrocarbons and free oxygen. You just need to remove it from the atmosphere.

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Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e... by catlifeonmars on Monday October 05, 2026 @09:11AM (#49964399)

Sounds significantly more expensive than not producing it in the first place though, doesn’t it?

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Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e... by enoint on Monday October 05, 2026 @10:14AM (#49965183)

Except for the politics

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Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e... by Marha01 on Monday October 05, 2026 @12:55AM (#49960827)

> The first problem, in order to reverse a chemical reaction, you need to provide at least the offsetting released energy of the initial reaction. That means for CO2 you need to provide at least as much energy as was released when the carbon oxidized in the first place.

This is only a problem if AI won't develop cheap carbon neutral energy sources, like fusion or advanced fission, or more efficient solar with cheap grid-scale batteries.

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Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e... by zahlman on Monday October 05, 2026 @03:11AM (#49961625)

There are many practical substances that can absorb CO2, and "regenerating" them may not be necessary (the resulting carbonate compounds can be useful without releasing the carbon) or as energy-intensive as the original reaction. This has been an active field of research for over a quarter of a century.

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Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e... by garte on Monday October 05, 2026 @05:39AM (#49962628)

there needs to be some form of energy input to analyse the co2 to another molecule. the logical input would be the sun. but why not use the sun directly via solar instead of going the long way over fossils?!

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Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e... by zahlman on Monday October 05, 2026 @09:55PM (#49973244)

Nobody in the thread is disagreeing with using solar power. The context is an argument about dealing with the CO2 that's already there, and how feasible those approaches are.

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Re:Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and e... by stratos123 on Monday October 05, 2026 @04:33AM (#49962168)

There are non-fossil sources of energy, though. Even without a major discovery like fusion power, we could in theory stop the progress of global warming at any time by building a lot of fission powerplants powering direct carbon capture.

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