It was never that dramatic, and it’s declining day by day. It’s a panic over a real but small problem.

Order of magnitude more water is lost from wasted irrigation (e.g. during rain, of fallow fields, sprayed into windy air, etc) than data centers.

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SXX 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Problem with data centers is that companies want to build them near densely populated areas that already have problems with water supply and high utility bills.

	▲	himinlomax 9 hours ago \| parent [-]
		1. They don't HAVE to use water. Air cooling, closed loop cooling, waste-water cooling, and so on, are options. Easy to regulate. Evaporative cooling is more energy efficient though, but a complete non-issue in places with abundant water and a non-option elsewhere. 2. Datacenters have been shown to reduce utility prices. They provide suppliers with previsible long term demand which allows for cost-effective network and production planning.