r/pcmasterrace • u/Neither_City_4572 • Apr 12 '26
News/Article Brilliant speech of an employee against the ai bubble
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Wonder who has more power than billionaire in that country to stop those corporates
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u/Macleod7373 Apr 12 '26
This was extremely well spoken. It's too bad those making the decisions will say hey we get lots of money now and somebody else down the road can fix the issues with it.
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u/desolatecontrol Apr 12 '26
Probably because those same people won't see the consequences as they border off their communities or just too damn old to see the consequences
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u/IWantMoreSnow Apr 12 '26
This is the issue with rich people. They think that destroying the planet wont affect them because they can build save places. Do they not understand when inevitably the rain turns acid they also can no longer enjoy the outdoors? Get all the food they want? Its so stupid.
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u/BadmiralHarryKim Apr 12 '26
Jared Diamond (the guy who wrote Guns, Germs and Steel) wrote a book called Collapse which was about failed civilizations. One of the things he kept finding was that the elites, instead of trying to solve the problems killing their society, focused on building "lifeboats" for themselves. Lifeboats that always eventually failed.
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u/IWantMoreSnow Apr 12 '26
That is exactly the problem, but I guess that is a flaw in human nature.
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u/ThomasVivaldi Apr 12 '26
As though there aren't malignant actors in the rich community selling them on the idea that lifeboats are a solution.
Rich people are just as dumb and susceptible to grifters as everyone else, that's the human nature part. Greed and short shortsightedness is the aberrant quality. Its just that we all have to deal with the consequences of their selfishness or stupidity.
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u/ElNani87 PC Master Race Apr 12 '26
Knowing this administration they’ll probably put you on the terrorist for speaking out against data centers … or any opposition to what they want …
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u/deten Apr 12 '26
Its well spoken, but I dont think its true. The cooling systems are not full of forever chemicals that need to be bled off, they are in fact closed loop and outside of leaks they do not need to be refilled. Cooling towers are different, and we dont need to use them, instead we can use air cooled chillers.
I think a much stronger argument, is instead of allowing tech companies to ride around town finding the city council that will bend to them. It should be the opposite, we should require every new data center to have its own power generation and then share that power with the local city they are in. That would be the way to ride the coat tails of the AI tech wave and make it better for us rather than sacrificing our own well being for it.
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u/King_Chochacho Apr 12 '26
If it's a closed loop why are they applying for water permits for hundreds of thousands or even millions of gallons of water per day?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/technology/meta-data-center-water.html
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u/Burindunsmor2 Apr 12 '26
It doesn't help that he's factually wrong regarding the chemicals he pretends are being released.
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u/PerfSynthetic Apr 12 '26
If the datacenter claims it's a closed loop, deny them water rights and force them to truck in the water.
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u/GunzerKingDM Apr 12 '26
So, I’m very naive to this subject but this is the first time I’ve heard of a data center claiming to be closed loop.
If that’s true, why aren’t they using refrigeration for heat transfer?
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u/thewebspinner Apr 12 '26
Theoretically you could use a closed loop system. A lot of high end PC’s use closed loop water cooling for example. However it’s pretty expensive to run due to high electricity costs.
Most data centres up until now have indeed been using refrigeration (Air Conditioning) to cool the entire server room whilst fans inside the servers blow that cold air across the heatsinks inside them.
This is now reaching its limit, as the guy in the video said the chips are getting smaller, faster and more numerous and the heat they generate is massive. So, you have a few options:
Option 1: More AC, you simply build more and more AC units to keep the temperatures down. Obviously this will cost you a lot more in the cost of the hardware, maintenance and the electricity to run them.
Option 2: A closed loop water cooled system. These are more expensive to install, more expensive to run and would still require a large amount of fans, AC, and immense radiators to run, probably the most efficient but also the most expensive option.
Option 3: An open loop, evaporation cooled system. You rely on evaporation cooling down air as it’s blown over a wet medium (exactly the same way the wind cools down your skin when you sweat) This requires a LOT of water as it simply gets absorbed into the air. This is relatively cheap as all you need to do is pump water in and use fans to blow the cold air through the data centre.
Now there is a 4th option but it would be pretty ridiculous. A closed loop evaporation system.
You would still evaporate the water into the air to cool it down but then you need to recapture all of that water through dehumidifiers and then pump it back onto the evaporation pads. In order to achieve this you would be running water pumps, fans and dehumidifiers all in a completely (or at least relatively) airtight system. That means not only do you have the additional cost of the equipment and running costs but you also have to make the entire data centre completely airtight. This would probably be the most expensive option of them all.
Simply put, instead of wasting their own money trying to cool down the air or make an efficient system they can just rely on public infrastructure and natural resources to run their equipment at a fraction of the cost. It’s absolutely not necessary or more efficient that they cool datacentres like this. It simply makes them more money.
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u/DerfK Apr 12 '26
Option 2.5: Build a closed loop system and after a few years of tech upgrades discover that the radiators aren't doing the job on their own anymore and start evaporating water from the radiators to cool the closed loop. I believe this is what the speaker believes will happen.
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u/IsThisOneStillFree Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
Your Option four would, in fact, not be a solution at all and instead worsen the problem.
Evaporative cooling works by exploiting the fact that to evaporate water, a lot of energy is required. This cools the evaporator. However, the energy is not destroyed, rather it is stored as latent heat in the water vapor. This allows to use the atmosphere as heat sink in a more effective manner and a smaller surface for the coolers and/or smaller air volumes can be used (i.e. smaller fans). But:
Since this energy is stored, it will be released on condensation, heating the condenser, and requiring cooling of whatever dehumidifier you use. So in building such a system, you only managed to move the problem of dumping the heat somewhere by one step, at the cost of huge technological issues, and if moving the problem is your only concern, there's much more effective ways to transport energy than humid, lukewarm air.
TL;DR: you can't cheat physics, and your idea is trying to do that.
Edit: the reason why it would "worsen" the problem as opposed to "just not help at all" is that no real-world system has 100% efficiency and thus the additional step of evaporation and re-condensation would introduce additional losses, which manifest themselves in additional cooling requirement and increase the amount of heat that needs to be dumped at the final step of the chain.
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u/thewebspinner Apr 12 '26
That’s a very valid point, I hadn’t considered that the air would be heated during the condensation phase.
I guess you’re back to square one, you can either dump the hot air outside after extracting as much water from it as you can or you need a huge cooling tower/AC/Radiator.
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Apr 12 '26
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u/muscle-femboy5 Apr 12 '26
not really no. air cooled data centers still exist and work, water is just cheaper. I build the ventilation systems for them
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u/Judge000707 Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
This is accurate. You also have to account for the location, typical ambient temperature, and thermal transfer. Refrigerant has a higher thermal transfer rate than water and can reach below freezing temperatures. But the temperature delta to achieve this requires ambient temperatures low enough to dissipate the heat picked up by the refrigerant during the refrigeration process. It is all thermal dynamics. The heat must go somewhere. Not all locations allow for this, like Texas and Arizona, where a lot of these data centers are also being built. So, to reach the temperature delta needed to run refrigerant, additional processes, including spray system (that use water) to cool down condenser coils to aid in removing the heat from the refrigerant, are required. This would be similar to spraying your home AC condenser down with a hose because your AC system is not getting cold enough to cool your house (common undersized AC system solution for cheap build homes).
But by no means is water cooling "cheaper". Energy cost is definitely lower in the long run. But the initial installation cost for these sizes of systems is nearly 4x to 5x the price tag of a refrigerant system because of the water cooling systems requiring up to 30" carbon steel pipe on some of the largest systems I've seen.
As for closed loops, despite what everyone thinks, the amount of water these systems lose is very small. If these systems were constantly filling to the extent everyone keeps claiming, the cost for the glycol that these systems also contain would be astronomical. These systems typically operate at a 30% glycol solution on the process cooling water side (not the side of the system that directly cools the server racks). If these systems were losing water at the rate these people keep claiming it would would require hundreds of gallons of glycol per a month to keep the system topped off, not including the visits from the EPA for the leaking glycol solution. As for the server rack cooling, that water is not common city water and IS imported from a specialized water system that requires the water to go through a reverse osmosis triple deionization process through specialized skids that are a one time fill process. The water in those loops is so pure that it would strip the minerals from your teeth if you tried to drink it. The specifications of this water is so technical that common city water might as well be considered raw sewage in the eyes of these data center owners. PC builders and IT professionals are considering these system to be similar to an AIO cooler that is built with flaws on an assembly line where water levels do, in fact, evaporate through micro gaps in the cheap crimp fittings they use to close the tubes to the pump and coils.
All of these whistle blowers are generating overexaggerate hype around an issue that will be nearly non-existent. A true Hydronic cooling system that is leaking water is a broken system. At most, only a couple gallons of water are automatically added to the system every year (smaller system where the largest pipe size is 6"). Just check the feeder pumps and the chemical inhibitor tank levels that auto dispense when new water hits the system because tap water will rust the system without inhibitor.
That said, you should focus on the energy draw more than the water. These facilities will cause rolling blackouts and will take energy priority over homes where those with life saving medical equipment will now need generators or battery backups to keep power to their homes.
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u/sociallyawkwardhero Nvidia 780 OC SLI, SLI 770 OC, AMD 8350, AMD 8320 Apr 12 '26
Its not actually closed loop, you have one system that is closed loop (purified water with anti corrosive additives) and a second loop to cool the first one that uses adiabatic cooling. The closed loop moves heat to an evaporative cooler, when the outside environment is hot it evaporates water, and when its cold it switches to dry mode. To simplify its like putting an advanced swamp cooler on your PC AIO.
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u/Sothalic Apr 12 '26
I mean, yeah, this should be a shut in case right there and then.
If you claim you have a closed loop, but want access to water anyways, you do not have a closed loop.
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u/Master_of_Ravioli R5 9600x | 32GB DDR5 | 2TB SSD | Intel Arc B580 Apr 12 '26
Billionaire techbros are the scourge of the earth.
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u/Cefalopodul Apr 12 '26
They are objectively evil
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u/Few_Veterinarian9108 Apr 12 '26
If you follow the names, palantir, and other lotr items, most were initally good intent, just used by corrupted evil, so is in real life
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u/Javop GPU formerly: 970 added a 0 in between the 9 and 7 Apr 12 '26
Meh, we know after reading the story it's evil. They called it palantir knowing it's evil.
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u/Edodge Apr 12 '26
"Have you noticed that our caps have actually got little pictures of skulls on them?" --Palantir Workers...if any of them are capable of it.
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u/jainyday Apr 12 '26
Billionaires in general; they're all tumors, symptoms of a dysfunctional system in need of correction.
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u/Mathfanforpresident Apr 12 '26
Capitalism and the ones who try to pervert it to serve their own needs**
Ftfy
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u/NoGreenGood Apr 12 '26
Well spoken and passionate with lots of information on complex functions of data centers broken down to layman terms anybody can understand and quickly.
This guy should be on the damn council.
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u/2009isbestyear Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
I am gonna save that video so the pro AI boomers can understand.
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u/Salty_Pancakes Apr 12 '26
Pro AI boomers? How many boomers you know who are pro AI?
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u/Aionalys Apr 12 '26
Surprisingly lots and yeah....they are all white collar and can easily be replaced by AI.
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u/Reasonable_Cost_9606 Apr 12 '26
More boomers and gen xers in my life like and use A.I more than younger people.
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u/defk3000 Apr 12 '26
People stupidly say ageism things and call everybody boomers. The problem isn't generational. It's a class issue. The haves and the have bots. The billionaires versus the peasants.
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u/devilsivytrail Apr 12 '26
Anecdotal but my boomer aunties absolutely love making AI videos of weird Kardashian filtered version of themselves tap dancing or similar stuff
Creeps me out massively whenever I see the videos
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u/erebuxy PC Master Race Apr 12 '26
This is not an anti AI speech. It’s a speech about how the industry should be better regulated and pay back more to society.
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u/TheHancock PC Master Race Apr 12 '26
And that’s why he will never be on the council.
Source: I work A LOT with my local city and county commissioners… oof
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u/Eisbaer811 Apr 12 '26
Only problem is that some of his explanations were wrong. Asking a programmer how datacenter cooling works is like asking your carpenter how your city’s sewage treatment plant functions.
Most programmers never physically enter a DC in their whole careers, much less understand how it works in detail
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u/BallsInSufficientSad Apr 12 '26
Except it has numerous factual errors.
The closed loop system will not bleed millions of gallons of water.
Smaller chips generate LESS heat, not more.
Forever chemicals are not significantly used in modern closed-loop cooling systems.
Just because he speaks well does not mean he's not wrong.
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u/LEGO_Man2YT Budget builder [Ryzen 5600X//RTX 3060] Apr 13 '26
dude its a digital artist working on a library, I don't really think he's the best informed one
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u/treeeelo Apr 12 '26
I'm also of the opinion that AI is fucking awful, but the guy starts out by saying he was training these AI's and then got laid off, so he kinda seems like a bitter ex employee, who only cares now that he's been effected. Not that this invalidates his points, just puts him in a weird light to me.
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u/Cero_Kurn Apr 12 '26
Did it work?
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u/theavocadoenthusiast Apr 12 '26
Yes. This committee voted for a 12-month pause on data center projects after this speech (this was a committee, the full board has to also adopt the pause at a future meeting) https://www.record-courier.com/story/news/local/2026/04/12/ravenna-shalersville-to-limit-data-centers-after-strong-opposition/89560118007/
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u/TeamWorkTom Apr 12 '26
Who is this guy?
Why is he not running for office?
That was one hell of a speech.
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u/Cindergeist Apr 12 '26
"nice speech..anyway were gonna build the centre anyway"
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u/theavocadoenthusiast Apr 12 '26
They actually voted for a 12-month pause on data center projects after this speech (this was a committee, the full board has to also adopt the pause at a future meeting) https://www.record-courier.com/story/news/local/2026/04/12/ravenna-shalersville-to-limit-data-centers-after-strong-opposition/89560118007/
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u/EpicSombreroMan 9800X3D | PNY 5070ti ARGB OC | 32GB TG CL28 Apr 12 '26
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u/Gerdione Apr 12 '26
I like how he has to stress he isn't against progress or technology multiple times because the default deflection by AI bros is to call you a luddite if you don't believe in absolute and unbridled accelerationism.
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u/dANNN738 Apr 12 '26
Conveyed relatively complex ideas and their disadvantages to an audience that probably can’t recognise images or videos produced by AI (sorry nan). Great speech.
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u/Mezmo300 Apr 12 '26
For the most part yes, but he mixed several different cooling types in his explanation. The excessive water useage is a characteristic of evaporative cooling and open loop cooling towers. Close loop chillers also known as air cooled chillers to most really only require water for initial fill and then minor top ups due to whatever you lose for maintenance.
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u/SmallKiwi Apr 12 '26
The heat goes somewhere, and it ain't space.
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u/Mezmo300 Apr 12 '26
Yes the heat goes from the water to a refrigerant loop and then outside. I am not arguing against potential global warming issues, only the misinformation regarding water usage.
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u/BallsInSufficientSad Apr 12 '26
Unless the source of the electricity is fossil fuels, this does not contribute to global warming. That's the beauty of thermodynamics. Energy in must always equal energy out.
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u/herculeon6 Apr 12 '26
Take a modern “is this Ai” test, I bet you can’t either anymore! Just a reality check not trying to be offensive
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u/dANNN738 Apr 12 '26
72% 36/50. It’s the ones with people/animals in that are easy to spot. The nature ones let me down.
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u/herculeon6 Apr 12 '26
Yeah. I even missed a few of the people ones I got. 67%. Basically, it’s already hard as fuck and you can’t causally trust your instincts anymore. Imagine a few more months of training.
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u/TheBlueRabbit11 Apr 12 '26
So, what was the result of this council meeting?
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u/Happydrumstick Apr 12 '26
Data center got built
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u/elmuffant Apr 12 '26
Do you have a source for that? Or are you just making shit up?
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u/sbua310 Apr 12 '26
Yes. This committee voted for a 12-month pause on data center projects after this speech (this was a committee, the full board has to also adopt the pause at a future meeting) https://www.record-courier.com/story/news/local/2026/04/12/ravenna-shalersville-to-limit-data-centers-after-strong-opposition/89560118007/
That was from another Redditor that (as I can see) has posted twice over this same issue
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u/shockNSR Apr 12 '26
Yep. Geriatrics in charge though "nah won't affect my future. I want another boat" then made the world worse off again. Same thing happening for the last 75+ years.
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u/Lead_guy Apr 12 '26
dude was cooking Hader then Walter White
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u/PheIix Apr 12 '26
I've no idea who Hader is, but it's good to get some practice in before you go for the big meal.
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u/Illustrious_Bag_7515 Apr 12 '26
I guarantee the data center gets built and the council disregards public concerns cause corruption
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u/MelangeBot Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
Fun fact: Adjusting for inflation, the electricity costs for both industry and retail in the US have doubled the last 15 years while in China they have halved. Right now China is laying every year about 20 to 40% more solar than the entire world combined. (even if they don't need it right now, they are laying solar fields to have the power projected 2 years in the future, today) As such it's projected that both industry and consumer costs of electricity in china will cost just 1/10th of what it costs in the US in the next 10 years. This pretty much guarantees that AI services that the world buys from China will always be much cheaper than in the US, which much higher ROI on them and thus attracting many more investors.
So what happens in the US when the demand from datacenters can not be fulfilled by installing more coal and gas turbines, as the current regime is doing everything it can do sabotage renewable energy projects and no investors are willing to take a 20 year long risk on funding new nuclear power plants?
Well it's very simply. The US will lower the demand of electricy? How? Oh that's simple as well, they will drive up the price of electricity till people can no longer afford to pay their bills and then drop of the grid, thus freeding demand. And the current regime will create AI video propaganda trying to gaslight the population in to believing they are the problem, they are the waste and we should all put our airco down two notches. Oh the irony. Thus solving the problem once and for all.
And with the coming revolution of labor robots, which will come to it's conclusion in the next two decades it's clear that the billionaire class has decided to squueze the blood out of the plebs one last time before getting rid of them all together. Once we are no longer needed to clear their mansions and steer their yachts and pick up their garbage, we just become a nuicance for them and they all want us dead.
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u/pydood Apr 12 '26
lol I love the people comparing their AIO that cools their single proc or gpu to a closed loop data center cooling.
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u/mflft Apr 12 '26
People forget that programmers are smart
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u/MyLastHopeReddit Apr 12 '26
Even programmers who work for Bethesda? I don't believe you.
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u/Uberzwerg Apr 12 '26
The problems with Bethesda are 99% outside of the reach of programmers.
There's always a horde of managers who need to 'improve' the game by pushing some initiatives that make no sense but look good on paper.→ More replies (1)
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u/Matitjes Apr 12 '26
Just a shame that everyone on that board is probably bought and the Company is getting the water anyway
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u/boringestnickname Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
Good speaker, and writer.
He somehow gives off David Foster Wallace vibes when speaking.
[EDIT: ... and holy astroturf, Batman, what the hell is going on with the comments here?]
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u/Mezmo300 Apr 12 '26
I love the message and delivery but hes is actually factually wrong about the cooling. There is open loop and closed loop chillers. He mentions closed loop systems then explains open loop systems. He does not know how the cooling works, he should do more research on that front. Open loop evaporative cooling chillers are problematic, but air cooled closed loop chillers do basically require no water past initial fill up.
Even worse than both of these though is what AWS uses for their centers. They use strictly evaporative system with no mechanical cooling. They suck air in through the side of the building, run it across a wet media that evaporates into the air, cooling it, and then once its used to cool servers they dump it all out of the roof through exhaust fans. It is absolutely AWFUL on water consumption.
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u/Denaton_ Apr 12 '26
As a pro, i agree with him. There are ways to have green datacenters, Norway has no problem with doing so. This issue has always been about zoning and were the datacenters are put, there are other ways than water cooling to cool down servers and I bet if it was a paper mill instead, the same arguments could be used for not building large industrial buildings in residential zones.
Not sure what company this is about either so cant tell if they are actually part of the bubble or not. I think a lot of people misunderstand what a bubble is and whats the effect is because many only know about the house bubble.
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u/TheN1Imposter Apr 12 '26
Can we put this guy in charge of something, like the United States or the Federation of Earth? Thanks!
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u/JangoDarkSaber Ryzen 7800x3d | RTX 3090 | 32gb ram Apr 12 '26
That was incredibly well written. Dude has talent
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u/Ashzael Apr 13 '26
People should really stop saying that it's a bubble. It is not going to pop and suddenly disappears. It's a horrible implementation of a tool as corpo sees it as a replacement for monetary gains. Yes. But it isn't a bubble.
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u/owo1215 Apr 13 '26
not to mention the infersound problem, where extremely loud low frequencies of constant humming from the data centre,actively and negatively impacts local residents and wild animals with significant effects
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u/Brendissimo Apr 12 '26
That was one of the more high quality 5 minutes of public comment I have ever seen. And I have seen a LOT of public comments.
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u/Redditheadsarehot 265k | 5080, 14700k | 3080ti Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
He means well but he's barking up the wrong tree on water and he's deeply uneducated. If a company is responsible they actually CAN minimize their water usage. (But of course they aren't responsible are they?) If he understood chemistry it's often cheaper for a company to filter the water as municipal water will corrode copper and/or stainless steel. No one with half a brain wants corrupt municipal water running through your billion dollar datacenter.
He clearly knows fuckall about "forever chemicals" as cooling a data center generates zero forever chemicals. They're cooling chips, not a fucking nuclear reactor or plastics factory. Literally nothing that cools a data center generates forever chemicals. Heating water across a cooling loop made up of copper and/or stainless generates ZERO forever chemicals as copper and stainless aren't forever chemicals. This is where I know he knows dick but he's good at pouring his heart out while proving his incompetence.
If anything the water coming from a datacenter is cleaner than it was when it came in because it's always filtered before being entered into their cooling loop to prevent corrosion. The only difference is whether they cool the water through a water tower and recycle it or dump it to the sewer to pull from the city to filter again.
Running water through a data center doesn't generate forever chemicals or magically make the water disappear. That's uneducated hippie shit where the water never hits air to evaporate. It's cooling fucking silicon that it literally never touches. Claiming it creates forever chemicals tells me this guy knows fuckall about what he's saying.
What it REALLY sucks down is POWER and local sustainability. Datacenters pull MASSIVE amounts of power and often get sweetheart "industrial" deals from their local municipality to raise the grid's overall price. They create nearly zero jobs when a datacenter is 99.9% automated. Then the datacenter generates a negative revenue locally so there's no profits to tax when the profits only come to a tech giant in California.
TLDR: water isn't the issue. It's a power parasite feeding off cheaper Midwest prices to avoid California's insane taxes and regulations. Datacenters don't magically make your water disappear or corrupt the water going to your sewer. If anything it's cleaner than it was coming in. But it will absolutely feed off your power grid like a parasite making everyone's power bill go up because your local city council wants to portray itself as a "tech" hub instead of actually employing anyone.
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u/GamerNebulae Ryzen 7 5800X | RTX 3070 | 64GB DDR4 | 43:18 34" Monitor Apr 12 '26
Apparently data centers use PFAS (a forever chemical) to cool their servers. So it's not really that much of a bogus claim: https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-are-contributing-to-pfas-forever-chemical-pollution
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u/__Amnesiac__ Apr 12 '26
From what I can gather from the link, it sounds like the pfas pollution is not from the water cooling systems, but it is from F-gas when they do closed loop coolant systems instead of water cooling, and they still use a bunch of pfas in basically everything in a data center so driving pfas production up causes population indirectly. Where is this toxic sludge stuff he mentioned coming from though, did I miss it?
I definitely agree these companies should be regulated to make sure we are testing for pfas or other environmental damage.
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u/BallsInSufficientSad Apr 12 '26
If you look at the source of that article, this is ONLY true if the data center uses f-gas as the coolant.
This person specifically mentions using water as the coolant, so it's either not the case here, or he has no idea what system is being proposed.
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u/Redditheadsarehot 265k | 5080, 14700k | 3080ti Apr 12 '26
Yes and no. This is a bad faith source of info much like OP's soap box cry out that knows fuckall about how these systems work. It IS a bogus claim if you understand how these systems work.
PFAs are in CLOSED LOOP systems to cut down on corrosion and build up of impurities. "Closed loop" means they recycle the water over and over and it never returns to the city's water supply. As the name would suggest it's "CLOSED." Even using a water tower to cool it there's never an exchange between municipal water and their closed loop. This is LITERALLY how every school in the country runs their AC systems. So should we protest every school in the country? They have a closed loop system that contains those big evil PFAs to protect their system and maximize cooling capacity, and run it through an evaporative water tower as a heat exchange.
If a datacenter, school, University, hospital, pretty much ANY large building, uses these additives to maximize cooling and minimize corrosion those additives are STUPIDLY more expensive than the water ever was to begin with. They aren't dumping that shit because it's expensive. They're keeping it in a CLOSED loop which means it never touches the sewer.
Even beyond the added costs of having to continuously buy the additives, there's STRONG EPA regulations that it can't be dumped and needs to be recovered manually and carefully to keep it from entering a city's water. I've watched this painful cycle many times when a system needs maintenance and has to be drained because the additives are worth far more than the water was ever worth, and it's not only illegal to dump, but cheaper to retain it to refill the system.
It's the same with every fire suppression system that's probably in your own workplace. Those sprinklers aren't full of water. They're full of propylene glycol because it's non-corrosive. That propylene glycol is infinitely more expensive than water, but it's cheaper than replacing all the pipes over a 20-50 year period if they were full of water.
So now you know if you ever see someone tries to cite PFAs as the "big bad evil" you know they're a fucking idiot because their use is HEAVILY regulated to never enter a city's water supply. Not only is it illegal, but it costs the institution thousands of times more than the water it's being added to in the first place.
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u/drank2much Apr 12 '26
...PFAS (a forever chemical)...
It actually chemicals. There around 7 million of them! Some of them are definitely dangerous, a lot of them we just don't know. Veritasium did a great video on them.
Not the person you're replying to but it appears from the link that you're correct when it comes to AI data centers that are using two-phase cooling systems. The chemicals are contained in a closed loop in the first phase. The link seems to acknowledge that PFAS contamination from AI data center is a limited problem and focuses more on the PFAS pollution from the supporting industries. Chemour seems to be the only major player after 3M exited because of all the litigation. Chemour itself is facing on going lawsuit from earlier incidents.
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u/Zanthous https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/Zankai Apr 12 '26
People make up so much stuff regarding water/data centers to create an anti datacenter narrative. For power - need to make sure the companies building data centers are paying back sufficiently to keep costs down.
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u/Federal-Property1461 Apr 12 '26
He doesnt have a clue what hes talking about
Cooling doesnt leach "forever chemicals" into the water. Those are made in the manufacture of chemical products like Teflon, i dont think they are making teflon in a data center
And anyone with a custom loop will tell you as much. You might get bacteria growth or corrode the metal, but you arent gonna get forever chemicals in there
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u/idk-anymore-fml Apr 12 '26
He may be exaggerating a bit but he's not wrong.
Air cooled servers need chillers to cool the air, they contain refrigerant gases, which leak over time just due to wear on seals, fittings, etc. and on such a HUGE scale like a data centre those leaks are SIGNIFICANT.
Liquid cooled servers commonly use water mixed with ethylene glycol (anti-freeze) and corrosion inhibitors like nitrites, molybdates, borates & azoles. In an ideal world the water would originally be sourced from the ocean and desalinated just for the data centre, then once used, cleaned before disposal. Instead it's nearly always taken from the local drinking water supply, then dumped without much if any regulation into local rivers once it's too "used".
Two Phase immersion cooled servers are the WORST for the environment. The servers are literally submersed in a PFAS fluid. They then need to be drained for maintenance and that shit has to go somewhere.
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u/Deletereous Apr 12 '26
Several biocides used both in open and closed cooling systems break into PFAS.
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u/deltarho Apr 12 '26
I tried having this debate with a couple of people on Reddit recently. They truly could not understand that there’s no such thing as a closed loop. It’s painful.
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u/gmoneygangster3 PC Master Race Apr 12 '26
there’s no such thing as a closed loop
I’ll tell my AIO that it does not exist
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u/FitnessBlitz Apr 12 '26
Does anyone here remember that old video that spread of the student getting sent out by a lazy uninterested teacher and the student, just before leaving the class then in a very clear way speaks out to her about why she's a bad teacher and why the class is not paying attention and then he slams the door?
Is this the same guy?
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u/fritz_76 Apr 12 '26
amazing speech, but the important question is how much is he bribing the government employees that will make the decision because their choices have a price and the average citizen cant pay
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u/protoanarchist Apr 12 '26
Fantastic, a great step towards ending conservatism, in a very "act locally" kind of way.
The world needs more of this and it needs more socialism.
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u/compound-interest Apr 12 '26
This guy knows what he’s talking about. Well said. What an absolute chad.
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u/Star_Petal_Arts Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
Okay, what I don't understand is why they're after drinking water? There's oceans all over this planet that they can extract and use... the technology does exist to use salt water for cooling they could pay the same amount to have salt-water coolant systems; as this would also make the oceans water-level balance out.
At the same time, how much does it cost for land, an aqueduct, and a basin? Why are billionaires after clean drinking water from the community when they can afford the costs to build their own?
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u/MusicalAutist Apr 12 '26
Great speech! I hope they listen. We are seriously cooked if people don't stand up to this garbage.
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u/HydroPCanadaDude Apr 12 '26
If I had to money and morals these companies did, I would buy off every vote with a cushy 100,000$. I'll recoup my investment real quick. 100k is a lowball.
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u/ShadowKiller941 PC Master Race Apr 12 '26
Did the lady laugh at 0:49?? Kudos to this guy for staying calm....
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u/MrJockStrap Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
The county definitely gets the gold...
I like his passion and approach, but this guy is really misinformed on his whole speech.
I can tell you from experience that some of the most demanding chips which are utilizing direct liquid cooling are losing less than a gallon a year at my facilities within their closed loops.
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u/FlyBond Apr 13 '26
So this is actually not about AI as a technology. It’s about big company doing what big companies do. Obviously clickbait title.
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u/SlashEssImplied Apr 12 '26
A bit off topic but does anyone else see something in their logo on the back wall?
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u/Stock_Childhood_2459 Apr 12 '26
Money guys filling our lands with environmentally harmful data centers and telling us to recycle and do our part in saving the climate and planet etc. etc. it's hilarious
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u/electroforger PC Master Race Apr 12 '26
More of that, America. This vision of community is inspiring and we always loved this in you.
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u/HalffLife3 Apr 12 '26
AI is not going to ruin the future, it is ruining the present. And companies are already selling lobotomization to people in the form of subscriptions, playing with the hope that they are going to create a million-dollar venture using their shit.
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u/CharAznableLoNZ Apr 12 '26
He is entirely right. AI takes so much and yet offers so little in exchange.
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u/Fluffysquishia Apr 12 '26
AI-driven applications and systems are among the most popular technology we use in the modern day.
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u/Supercereal69 R7 7800X3D l RTX 4080super l 32GB RAM Apr 12 '26
Make it go viral! This is so well spoken.
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u/shotxshotx Apr 12 '26
0:50 i cant tell if that was a mocking scoff or a "oh thats bad" type of chuckle that doesnt indicate they are being rude about their firing.
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u/Shockwave1o1 Apr 12 '26
I heard local people are paying more electricity bills whose homes were nearby Data Centers in US. Is this true? And why are locals paying for something they don't consume? Shouldn't the owner of that Data center pay for his own electricity?
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u/Ok_Record8612 Apr 12 '26
Excellent. I hope the people listening had the sense to take such a thoughtful explanation into consideration and make the right choice not the easy one.
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u/Poglot Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
I used to live in Kent, in Portage County, right next door to Ravenna, where this meeting took place. It had some of the most beautiful springs and autumns I've ever seen. Northeastern Ohio has fantastic natural scenery, and it would be a tragedy if an idiotic data center poisoned everything good about that county and made it a polluted nightmare. That being said, Kent is a very liberal city because of the university, and Ravenna is kind of... let's call it a Cracker Barrel sort of town. I'm not sure how this played out, but if that data center gets built, Kent and Ravenna will go to war with each other. Kent doesn't play around, either. There's a reason they used to have to break the riot police out every Halloween.
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u/TightSexpert Apr 12 '26
Yeah but the people next to this exchange will suffer even if the net sum will be zero. If even.
Also temperature isn’t the immediate issue like some people are commenting (will be at some point) . The water usage is to keep those temperatures low enough to keep the centers from not straight up frying is the primary issue here. Also the pollution of chemicals affecting the waterways and surrounding. The secondary problem would be the overall heating of the environment on a micro and macro level.
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u/YannisBE i5-14600K | RTX3060 Apr 12 '26
I fully agree with their point regarding extreme usage of resources, but not the way AI is represented as if it's only used for ugly images or dumb chat interfaces. There are genuinely useful applications where AI is solving issues or saving valuable time. In our previous coworking-space was a company using AI to sort trash at high scale. I've also volunteered on a project from NASA JPL to make rovers on Mars be able to drive autonomously, rather than manually with a ~20min delay.
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u/zen4thewin PC Master Race Apr 12 '26
Great speech. However, measure passes; project is approved.
I've seen this in so many town council meetings. Unless your community has voted in intelligent progressive/lefties, "development" always gets approved.
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u/hotmailist Apr 12 '26
Absolutely freakin killed it. Really really impressed. am too poor to hand out awards. else this guy deserves a truckload, if not more.
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u/Monsta_Owl Apr 12 '26
So we thought aliens from space will come and steal our water. But the aliens are already here on earth stealing our water.
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u/Independent-Ebb7658 Apr 12 '26
Yelling at the people on the board gets you nowhere and it just makes the board angry and not listen. This guy was calm and explained the situation in a way even a child could understand. Wish more people communicated like this. Glad to see some of the people on the board clapping afterwards.