thingwhere

@robert23747 @Sarahjdublin 'everyone I disagree with is a bot'. GTFO.

@thingwhere @Sarahjdublin Fuck off bot scum.

Who do we report the data centres to?

@SumptHunter @seagullsimp6 @Sarahjdublin The variations between reported and real might be slightly off, but it would make no sense for it to be magnitudes off - therefore it's usable. As I've also said, it also comes from a familiarity with the tech in line with the power levels and density used.

@thingwhere @seagullsimp6 @Sarahjdublin Do you really think the government and the multinational investors who want their business to run untouched would openly report overuse of public water. That wouldn’t help the politicians or the investors so what would their incentive to be transparent be? None. They aren’t.

@seagullsimp6 @Sarahjdublin Yes and no; Meta's self-reporting of Clonee was for 2025, and is only ~30% higher than what was listed in the 2021 data. We also have 2025 data for AWS facilities which is what I've been using for evap cooling figures. I would fully agree that better tracking is needed though.

@thingwhere @Sarahjdublin this is from data published in 2021, it's completely unreliable for 2026 estimates of which there are absolutely none because uisce éireann has admitted they have no reliable way of tracking most water consumption and only 15% of data centres are releasing the info themselves.

@GASLIGHTER_ @Sarahjdublin These are certainly valid points and not ones I was ignoring -they were just not part of the conversation at hand. Very interesting to hear about the energy abstraction water consumption; would you have any sources for that for my further reading?

@thingwhere @Sarahjdublin Cool but you're ignoring 1: the impact on ecology of datacenter runoff water raising water temperatures, and 2: the amount of water used in the energy production for the datacenters. Energy abstraction is over 80% of water use, 23% of which is used by datacenters.

@GASLIGHTER_ @Sarahjdublin If industrial water usage is 99% of consumption, surely we should be looking at who is using that. And I'd have no issues at all with that. Just like I've no issues with talking about the single DC that uses more water than everyone else combined.

@GASLIGHTER_ @Sarahjdublin If DC water usage is <1% of total usage, and household is 1% of total usage-that still doesn't make DCs the problem. The evap-DC's are a fraction again of that. There are certainly problems with datacentres; but water usage isn't one of them.

@GymRobcom @PBresnihan @fiona_boylan @IrishWater There's no reports I can provide that prove what I'm saying, but as someone in a DC adjacent field-I would be aware of both the capacity and power issues that would prevent AI facilities being put here. We also just don't have the power grid to support that level of consumption.

@GymRobcom @PBresnihan @fiona_boylan @IrishWater We also just don't have the power density required to support AI workloads. We certainly have servers running APIs and such that integrate with AI, but they're not the big power draws that the GPU based AI models run on. 2/x

In 2021, @IrishWater reported that data centres across Ireland used 810 megalitres of water (0.13% of national supply). But that same year, Meta reported that it used 928 megalitres of water for its data centre in Clonee alone. Hard to trust their assertions on DC water usage.

@Sarahjdublin Excepting Meta Clonee; even if the numbers for the rest of the evap cooled ones are triple their reported numbers, they'd still be under 0.1% of daily watergrid usage. I fully agree on power.

@thingwhere I absolutely guarantee they’re using more water than reported. They’re also using 80% of Dublin’s electricity. Personally I think they can fuck off.

@Sarahjdublin The evap stuff however; uses very little water and is very much in line with technical expectations vs power consumption and heat levels.

@Sarahjdublin There is indeed incentive to under-report, however as I happen to be quite familiar with the technology-the numbers given seem accurate to me. Meta Clonee is by far the biggest user, more than all of the others combined and I've already said I agree that it should be looked at

@GymRobcom @PBresnihan @fiona_boylan @IrishWater Ireland doesn't have any AI datacentres and given the high-density power usage, is unlikely to be brought here due to the lack of sufficient power capacity or moves to increase that to the degree that would be needed to support it.

@PBresnihan @fiona_boylan @IrishWater Also people defending data centres saying it’s less than 1% of National water supply are ignoring that almost 90% of data centres are in Dublin, so what percentage of Dublin’s water are they taking? And more DC’s have been built and more demand for AI since the 2021 figure

@Sarahjdublin Hardly condescension. Lot of ppl talking about technical matters with broad-strokes info, on an area I'm quite familiar with-hence educate. As for reporting; seems to be a UE tracking issue. dublininquirer.com/does-irish-wat… covers this somewhat.

@thingwhere Your condescension is noted. Please do explain why self reported water usage figures are higher than Uisce Éireann’s reported figures.

@Sarahjdublin Ye; my bad re thread. As for hosepipe ban where the DCs are; that doesn't change that daily usage is still <1% of total watergrid amounts. No doubt it adds to the load, but the numbers we have indicate its not a substantial impact vs all the other usage.

@thingwhere Hmmm so there’s a hosepipe ban in the areas where over 90% of the data centres are located, you don’t find that at all suspicious? Also, please learn how to put your tweets in a thread instead of spamming. Grma.

@Sarahjdublin Thank you for attending my Ted talk.

@Sarahjdublin Most of the information you see regarding concerns on DC water usage are based on American setups, where they run full water-cooled or need evap-cooling for a big part of the year. Our climate allows for fully air-chilled setups that don't use any water. 4/x