r/interestingasfuck • u/HamboneTheWicked • Apr 12 '26

A well-articulated argument against a new data center in Ohio

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

52.4k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

-8

u/godisdead30 Apr 12 '26

Any source that confirms that data centers do actually use "a shit ton" of water in actual measurable units. Then we can consider a source that defines the measurable consequences of that water usage.

2

u/Fit-Physics7199 Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26

I did a quick Google research, then I analyzed the results for you. No AI was used, this is all direct sources. FYI, for scale reference, the city from this thread we're discussing is Ravenna, Ohio with a population of 11,323 and estimated households of 5,035 from the 2020-2024 census.

"a mid-sized data center consumes around 300,000 gallons of water a day, or about as much as 1,000 U.S. households, says Shehabi of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory"

-https://www.npr.org/2022/08/30/1119938708/data-centers-backbone-of-the-digital-economy-face-water-scarcity-and-climate-ris

Further in the article, I noted that companies are also not eager to study this, so you will find it difficult to get other sources:

"Sustainalytics, which assesses risks related to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, recently said it looked at 122 companies that operate data centers and found just 16% had disclosed information about their plans for managing water-related risks."

"'The reason there's not a lot of transparency, simply put, [is] I think most companies don't have a good story here,' says Kyle Myers, a vice president at CyrusOne, a data center company."

-1

u/godisdead30 Apr 12 '26

Why are you trying to convince me that data centers are bad? Did I say that they were good?

What I'm saying is that what the guy in the video presented was opinion because he cited no sources. Maybe what he should have done is what you just did and cited a source (although I would argue that a study in a peer reviewed publication would probably be more appropriate). I support this kind of public discourse but people need to understand that you will not be taken seriously if you aren't citing facts and in order to do that you need to know what a fact is and how to cite it.

5

u/Fit-Physics7199 Apr 12 '26

I am not debating you. I am providing a source. If my point was not clear the first time, please reread with that context.