So what? Water used for cooling doesn't disappear.

ordersofmag an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Historically large data centers used evaporative cooling. So the water disappeared in sense that it's no longer available in a useful form in it's original locations. That's changing with growing use of closed-loop systems.

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minimaxir 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A lot of people think it does, surprisingly. People memed too hard about "querying ChatGPT drains lakes" and anyone who contested it was deemed a booster, so it stuck.

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jryan49 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I thought some cooling setups aren't closed loop?

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minimaxir 2 hours ago | parent [-]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_cycle

	▲	sensanaty 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It doesn't mean the water goes back into the same sources it was pulled from, though

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alcomatt 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

no it doesn't but it doesn't go back to where it was taken from either. So it does affect local aquifers.