Net-zero emission goals went out the window with AI.
Wait… What? The article seems to imply that the water is consumed, but it’s referencing the water used in cooling loops.
Using GPT-4 to generate 100 words consumes up to 3 bottles of water — AI data centers also raise power and water bills for nearby residents
Submitted 2 months ago by BrikoX@lemmy.zip to technology@lemmy.zip
Comments
peanuts4life@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Nawor3565@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Data centers don’t have “water cooling loops” that are anything like the ones in consumer PCs. To maximize cooling capacity, a lot of the systems use some sort of evaporative cooling that results in some of the water just floating away into the atmosphere (after which point it would need to be purified again before it could be used for human consumption)
It also seems from what I can find like some data centers just pipe in clean ambient-temperature water, use it to cool the servers, and then pipe it right back out into the municipal sewer system. Which is even more stupid, because you’re taking potable water, sending it through systems that should be pretty clean, and then mixing it with waste water. If anything, that should be considered “gray water”, which is still fine to use for things like flushing toilets.
AndrewZabar@lemmy.world 2 months ago
As with everything else, we need the government to regulate it because otherwise the corporations don’t really give a shit.
morbidcactus@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
I would be really surprised if anyone is cooling data centres with city water except in emergency, that’s so unbelievably expensive (could see water direct from a lake though but that had it’s own issues too). I recall saving millions just by adjusting a fill target on an evaporative cooling tower so it wouldn’t overfill (levels were really cyclic, targets weren’t tuned for them), and that was only a fraction of what it’d have cost if we’d’ve used pure city.
Umbrias@beehaw.org 2 months ago
water supply is a limited resource, everyone here appears to be focusing on the wrong thing. when a data center uses water in its cooling noops, that water is made inaccessible anywhere else, such as agriculture, natural habitats, drinking. it does not matter (directly) that the water technically is potable or not after use. Very little water ever leaves the earth system, yet drought exists.
Affidavit@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Huh. I run a LLM locally on my own machine. Not looking forward to my next water bill.
nexguy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Have you checked your computers gallons per hour? I’m thinking of getting an electric myself.
ninjabard@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s almost like these “services” are an unnecessary blight that benefit only those that profit financially from them.
desktop_user@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
that, is what a service always was and will continue to be, live service games, service jobs, telco service. this isn’t new, it just affects more people
fubarx@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
The Excel spreadsheet that calculates this has so many ‘assumption’ cells.
Bob_Robertson_IX@lemmy.world 2 months ago
We need municipal datacenters that can be integrated into the municipal water departments, and municipal electrical grid. Use the hot water to provide ‘on tap’ hot water for local businesses that need it.
match@pawb.social 2 months ago
slrpnk.net needs you
Badeendje@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Jup, way more of these kinds of solutions are needed. But data enters usually add stuff to the water to make it cool better and make it undrinkable. But the whole ordeal just shows water and power is too cheap for these kinds of uses.
nexguy@lemmy.world 2 months ago
How many bottles of water does generating a bottle of water consume? Checkmate water bottle and water bottle related statistical analysis enthusiasts.
SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 2 months ago
I’m not 100% down with these numbers. The verge has a breakdown of energy usage for generation and training, and you could argue that demand is responsible for training.
I would also argue that energy usage would be directly related to water usage. Unless there is passive cooling unrelated to the energy generation, the evaporation would be directly related to the energy cost.
I didn’t collect sources while I was coming this, but I found that it takes about .3 KWH to generate an AI image - about the same as fully charging a smartphone. 1kwh is ~860 kCal (one Calorie = kCal = 1000 calories) 1 image is ~282 Calories 1 Calorie heats 1 liter of water 1 degree It takes ~540 Calories to vaporise 1 liter 2 images vaporize a liter of water There are ~30k liters in an 18 foot above ground pool with 4ft of water. There were 15 billion images generated daily in May 2024 As of August 2023, people have generated almost 15.5 billion AI-generated images, and each day sees approximately 34 million new AI-generated images. 17 million liters vaporized daily, about 500 swimming pools This put my numbers at ~250k swimming pools vaporized so far.
BrikoX@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
<…> I found that it takes about .3 KWH to generate an AI image <…>
There isn’t really set power usage per image, since different models will take different amount of time. There are 100s of different factors and optional toggles that can increase or reduce time needed.
SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 2 months ago
I was using a pretty broad brush. Some of the figures were higher, some were lower, but it many were consistently around .3. Feel free to take it with a grain of salt. Even if I’m over by 50%, it is still a large number.
0laura@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
it takes about 10 seconds for me to generate an image, my GPU can use 80 watts max. that’s 800 watt seconds or 0.0002222 kWh, if my math is correct
SpikesOtherDog@ani.social 2 months ago
That’s a good point. I’m guessing my numbers might refer more to cloud providers than individuals with smaller data sets.
okamiueru@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Can anyone explain the conversion from a bottle of watter to something like kWh?
Affidavit@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Sorry for the delayed response, it took me a while to do the calculations but I finally figured out out:
It’s magic.
I hope this helps.
kitnaht@lemmy.world 2 months ago
In this world, we obey the law of thermodynamics.
Zikeji@programming.dev 2 months ago
Yeah the article is disingenuous at best. There are many things wrong with generative AI, but this is just a lousy approach.
If I make a PC, put in a water cooling loop, and use it to run an LLM - sure, water is circulating, but that water isn’t just vanishing lol.
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
My friend, you are naive at best if you think AI data centers are using closed loop water cooling. Look up evaporative cooling towers. It’s “consumed” in the sense that it is evaporated.
groet@feddit.org 2 months ago
It consumes the resource of “purified, available water” which is consumed as it is no longer purified or unavailable (if evaporated). The same way nothing ever “consumes” energy, it just makes it unusable.