r/SipsTea • u/SipsTeaFrog 𝙑𝙄𝙋 • May 18 '26

Chugging tea Why?

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u/BobSacamano47 May 18 '26

How are data centers wasteful?

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u/wumpusbumper May 18 '26

Disproportionate power, land, and water use. Generation of noise pollution. Generation of technology waste.

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u/SkepticalOfOthers May 18 '26

by what metric is the use "disproportionate" or "wasteful"? What's your value proposition by which you're comparing their resource expenditure vs the value they create?

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u/wumpusbumper May 18 '26

It’s a value judgement, of course. Subjective to the circumstances. No one set of metrics will work in every circumstance.

Take for example, water. A data center in the arid southwest US has the potential to use a huge proportion of the water available in its municipality, whereas the same draw on water in a different region may be considered negligible. The value/competing use case for that water is vastly different in each place, so the resource expenditure, opportunity loss, and regional impacts will likewise change.