this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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This is analogous to the "I'm using paper straws while the billionaires take a private jet each to Venice" situation.
So I should delete old mails so that maybe (and actually no, it won't) there will be less drives to cool in the datacentre while the techbros have entire datacentres using hundreds of terawatts of power[1] and is predicted to be using billions of cubic metres of water per year by 2027[2].
As usual, they're looking toward the people they can influence to make changes to their lifestyle, and ignoring the people actually doing the damage because they know they will not change.
[1] https://www.iea.org/reports/electricity-2024: IEA annual report showing that AI and crypto is estimated to have consumed 465tw/h of energy in 2024. [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/cindygordon/2024/02/25/ai-is-accelerating-the-loss-of-our-scarcest-natural-resource-water: Forbes report stating that AI datacentres are estimated to use around 6.6 billion cubic metres of water by the year 2027.
Going by the Forbes article's numbers on adult human water consumption, 6.6 billion m^3 would be pretty damn close to the entire human population's water needs. 2.6 litres per adult per day is 0.949 m^3 over a year, so multiplying that by a world population of 8.2 billion people (I know that's adults and children but I'm approximating for scale here) is 7.7 billion m^3 of fresh water
2.6L/day might cover drinking water, but definitely not cooking/cleaning/bathing/laundry. Let alone growing food.