Data centers and water (WHAT WATER??) Two stories from yesterday,

[niyad]

both of them important to me.

The first is from a townhall meeting in my community about a proposed data center to be built near the Garden of the Gods (a beautiful geologic entity). The company that wants to build that damned thing lied last night, saying they were ONLY going to use TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND GALLONS OF WATER to open, and never use again. We live in a desert, we are in severe drought, our reservoirs and snowpack are dangerously low, and we already have watering restrictions (pathetically minimal as they are). The Colorado River is dangerously low. The SCDS . . So, at whose expense will they get their mere one-time-only gallons? From what friends who attended the meeting tell me, the reaction of the citizens was wonderful.

The second story comes from my beloved Lake Tahoe. The 57,000+ residents were told that they have to find a new power source by next May, because the company is going to be giving all the power to a new data center. Isn't that lovely?

Sooo. .fuck the people. fuck the environment. Apparently data centers are the new gods we must all worship without question or cavil, regardless of the cost. Which is going to be higher than most can imagine.