19 replies to this topic

[Victoria Watcher]

ERCOT hit with avalanche of gigawatt requests as AI fever sweeps Texas

AI-driven mega-projects push power requests past 230 gigawatts, raising alarms over grid reliability.

 

https://www.chron.co...ot-21233435.php

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 13 December 2025 - 09:29 AM.

[LJ]

City of Chandler AZ just turned down a request for a data center which would have brought lots of jobs to the city due to citizens concerns about power and water.

[Victoria Watcher]

City of Chandler AZ just turned down a request for a data center which would have brought lots of jobs to the city due to citizens concerns about power and water.

 

Chandler is a nice, weird city.  IIRC they refused to pay for public transit back in the day,s o while the buses traversed the city, they did not have stops there.

[Blair M.]

Microsoft is about to invest C$7.5 billion in a new Canadian data centre focused on their A.I. infrastructure. 

They've chosen Canada as the location because of our national political stability, and positive social structure. 

 

Canada has lots to be bullish about as it relates to large scale data centres - we've got hydro electric power, a cool to cold climate, major water sources for massive chillers, and because of the nature of our major population centres being strung along our entire southern border, cheap and easy access to a coast to coast major fibre backbone and thus easy access to the the world. 

 

It's interesting how the business world views our political climate in relation to the construction of new data centres. Although we here at home might see our national political scene as occasionally being a bit "wild" - on an international scale Canada is seen as ultra-stable and politically progressive, and is exactly what major companies like Microsoft are looking for before committing to investing many billions of dollars into their A.I. infrastructure. 

 

https://www.ctvnews....infrastructure/

[Mike K.]

This is going to get mighty interesting.

Massive data centres are drawing such huge water aquifer water volumes down in the US, that they’re changing the ecology of significant portions of land that rely on access to the water table to feed springs.

This is the unseen environmental impact of the AI/autonomous tech we are told will solve the environmental problems in our society. It’s just replacing one form of environmental damage and impact for another. But this time, it’s out of sight and out of mind.

[Victoria Watcher]

This is the unseen environmental impact of the autonomous tech we are told will solve the environmental problems in our society. It’s just replacing one form of environmental damage and impact for another. But this time, out of sight and out of mind.

 

Where is your data to back this up?

 

Consider that in some very short amount of time, farm food production will be cheaper, as automation takes away some human jobs.  That'll bring costs and prices down.  How is that a bad thing?

 

Elon also says most of the computing will be done in space.  Sounds good to me.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 December 2025 - 09:22 AM.

[Mike K.]

You’re not aware of this? Surely, our biggest AI and autonomous vehicle booster, is aware of this.

[Victoria Watcher]

Massive data centres are drawing such huge water aquifer water volumes down in the US, that they’re changing the ecology of significant portions of land that rely on access to the water table to feed springs.

 

Taking water from the ground, heating it, then returning 100% of that water back is not depleting the resource.  Any more so than hydro-electric dams "take" water.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 December 2025 - 09:24 AM.

[Mike K.]

Taking water from the ground, heating it, then returning 100% of that water back is not depleting the resource. Any more so than hydro-electric dams "take" water.

The water drawn cools the machines, but also evaporates.

[dasmo]

Then why do we have lawn watering restrictions! 

[Mike K.]

Another good point. What water is drawn, and can be released, is now displaced. Ie, it was drawn from an aquifer 75 miles away, and discharged where it’ll never re-enter the aquifer and supply the areas dependent on that water source.

The autonomous tech and AI industry is extremely destructive. But we are never told that by the boosters

[Victoria Watcher]

Then why do we have lawn watering restrictions! 

 

When you water your lawn in Oak Bay, that water does not make itself back to the Sooke watershed.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 15 December 2025 - 09:33 AM.

[Victoria Watcher]

The autonomous tech and AI industry is extremely destructive. But we are never told that by the boosters

 

It's actually not.  The good far outweighs the bad.  

[Mike K.]

It always does, in your framing of this tech.

There is never a scenario where you concede a negative. It’s like team sports. Your team might suck, but you’ll always defend it.

[dasmo]

When you water your lawn in Oak Bay, that water does not make itself back to the Sooke watershed.

Isn't this is the point Mike is making in regards to the negative of data Center water usage?

[Victoria Watcher]

Sometimes I think though, that you guys will say a data centre is bad. But a shopping centre or widget factory is good.

[dasmo]

Sometimes I think though, that you guys will say a data centre is bad. But a shopping centre or widget factory is good.

I'm not saying they are bad. Everything has a cost. I haven't researched it enough to really give my take as far as the environmental impact. I was more pointing out the hypocrisy and illusionary impact around regulations. Cooling with water doesn't poison it so it comes down to capacity/time. If they are drawing from a sources that can't regenerate fast enough it might be a problem for say a community that also draws from the same source for farming and drinking etc. Evaporated water will eventually make it back I assume. Or maybe at a large enough scale it shifts the cycle. I don't know. This is why they want it in Canada. We have a lot of water capacity and cooler temps. Probably not a good idea to locate it on Salt spring Island though. 

[Matt R.]

Yeah we barely even have electricity half the time.

[Blair M.]

Southern California and Arizona aren't where you want to build data centres. If you do, then the warnings above come into play.

 

You want data centres where hydroelectric power is plentiful, and copious amounts of water are available for cooling. That the water would otherwise end up in the Pacific Ocean (Columbia River) makes for ideal locations like Google has chosen here:

https://www.google.c...Dc5MjA2N0gBUAM=

ideal.

 

And a little bit further south, we have Apple and Facebook: https://www.google.c...Dc5MjA2N0gBUAM=

 

Canada has plenty of what Google, Apple, and Facebook have found in Oregon - massive amounts of otherwise ice cold "flowing to the sea" river water for cooling, and massive amounts of hydroelectric power available, and with the future potential for much, much more. 

 

Not all Oregonians are equally hyped up for it to be sure, but the State of Oregon has placed itself as one of the worlds top locations for data centres, a model B.C. might be wise to consider as well.

Edited by Blair M., 15 December 2025 - 06:50 PM.

[LJ]

What do all these data centers do? How much data can there be? Maybe they are misnamed and should be called processing centers?