Post AkBAyTIiKWQvHTgLCa by jamiemccarthy@mastodon.social
(DIR) More posts by jamiemccarthy@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #AkAg7MgzAl4yoPnNvE by jamiemccarthy@mastodon.social
2024-07-21T12:34:47Z
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“A single data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of drinking water a day, enough to supply thousands of households or farms”15 acre-feet supplies “thousands” of farms how, exactly?From: @gerrymcgovernhttps://mastodon.green/@gerrymcgovern/112819562862310166
(DIR) Post #AkAg7Nooz6wQJ0T9m4 by cy@fedicy.us.to
2024-07-21T23:58:11Z
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“A single data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of drinking water a day, enough to supply thousands of households or a few farms”better?
(DIR) Post #AkAg7O3i5kqp3BR2yu by jamiemccarthy@mastodon.social
2024-07-21T12:38:38Z
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@gerrymcgovern The average farm size in Oklahoma is 467 acres. So one data center would supply one farm with 0.4” of water daily.There are 78,000 farms in Oklahoma
(DIR) Post #AkAg7P2gR3ck6Hxk1I by jamiemccarthy@mastodon.social
2024-07-21T12:43:14Z
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@gerrymcgovern I Iiterally didn’t read a word of this article because the caption on the image before the lede graf was a risible, eye-roller, innumerate, knee-slapper of a lie.American farms extract 25 billion gallons of groundwater a day, billion with a B. That doesn’t count surface water. Miss me with the “uP tO FivE MiLLiOn GaLLoNs” propaganda
(DIR) Post #AkBAyQxN2uAk0hgGem by gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green
2024-07-21T14:28:24Z
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@jamiemccarthy It is not propaganda that " A single data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of drinking water per day." Or are you saying that the above statement is a lie?Or are you saying that because farmers use so much more water, then 5 million gallons of drinking water is nothing and local communities should not be complaining?
(DIR) Post #AkBAyRt9a4OQtuiPiq by jamiemccarthy@mastodon.social
2024-07-21T16:32:34Z
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@gerrymcgovern I'm saying the part after the comma, the part you cut out of your quote, is a lie.Five million gallons of water per day is not "enough to supply thousands of [...] farms." That is an untrue statement.Right?
(DIR) Post #AkBAySg4eBWbLdbTyS by gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green
2024-07-21T19:44:26Z
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@jamiemccarthy You're right about farming for sure. They shouldn't have made a comparison to farming. However, their core points about the water demands of data centers are true. And we are only at the bottom of the hockey stick of data center water demand.
(DIR) Post #AkBAyTIiKWQvHTgLCa by jamiemccarthy@mastodon.social
2024-07-21T23:39:05Z
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@gerrymcgovern I'd suggest reading these news stories for what they are: accumulations of adjectives to mislead you. Here for example: "massive," "strain," "fragile." It's "giants" vs. "residents and agriculture"!The fact is that alfalfa irrigation — just alfalfa, whose only use is feeding cows — uses more water than the entire commercial and industrial sector. And in the Colorado River basin, it uses not just more, but nine times as much. Who's the "giant"?https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1064&context=wffdocs
(DIR) Post #AkBAyV61efTKqhlEhc by jamiemccarthy@mastodon.social
2024-07-21T23:48:35Z
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@gerrymcgovern Arizona has 280,000 acres of alfalfa, which uses 2.4 feet of water per acre per year. That's 600M gallons a day.U-Tulsa writes "If each data center uses 3M gallons of water per day for cooling" — they don't, the average is 1/10th that — "...that equates to more than 170M gallons of drinking water used per day." No, Arizona's 81 data centers, if mid-size, would use 24M.2% of one Arizona crop: alfalfahttps://www.nass.usda.gov/Quick_Stats/Ag_Overview/stateOverview.php?state=ARIZONAhttps://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/2023/08/08/big-ag-is-draining-the-colorado-river-dry/https://www.npr.org/2022/08/30/1119938708/data-centers-backbone-of-the-digital-economy-face-water-scarcity-and-climate-ris
(DIR) Post #AkBB8goUweyW5MQA7s by cy@fedicy.us.to
2024-07-22T05:40:17Z
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Two slight problems here. First, the "mean" is going to be severely innaccurate, since farm size does not fall on a bell curve. There's just more room for lots of small farms, and the few monstrously gigantic industrial farms would pull the average away from that majority. The median in this case would be still an overestimate, but closer to the average size of a farm.Checking the attached PDF from the USDA, the median farm size is 80 acres, which could get 2.3 inches of irrigation per day, with 5 million gallons. Still not enough for thousands of farms, but it is enough for 2-3 to get an inch of water per day.The second more minor problem is that farms do not need to irrigate every inch of land on their property. This is a very slight problem, because most farms do irrigate every inch, in circular patterns because of the giant rotating sprinkler pipes they use. That's still less than 100% of the land, but not much less.I'd argue that a more efficient method of farming could only water the actual crops, rather than rows between the crops. For wheat that wouldn't matter, but many vegetables and orchards have to have clear space between the rows of plants.Oh then there's the fact that you don't have to water every day.Anyway, either way big farms do use a lot of water. It'd be way less misleading to make sure to specify that. It doesn't help anyone to make the problem look worse than it is.CC: @gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green
(DIR) Post #AkBBKBUHEzS6P7Ra64 by jamiemccarthy@mastodon.social
2024-07-22T00:01:18Z
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@cy Much!
(DIR) Post #AkBtOgZe02ApxVuXey by jamiemccarthy@mastodon.social
2024-07-22T11:11:45Z
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@cy @gerrymcgovern Okay, let’s just grant all that. It sounds like we agree we should use reasonable assumptions like, not assuming farms too much smaller than most Oklahomans think of as a typical farm, and not counting a thimbleful of water as “supply.” What do you think the word “thousands” would have to be changed to, to make the caption not a lie?I’m thinking “several” would be perfectly fine and if it read “a dozen” I would be skeptical but I wouldn’t quibble
(DIR) Post #AkBtOhhpn4JrTCkb44 by jamiemccarthy@mastodon.social
2024-07-22T13:46:25Z
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@cy Also, by the way, there’s geographic “room” for small farms, but economics make farming impractical very quickly as acreage shrinks, particularly for row crops which I assume are most of Oklahoma farms. A 200 acre farm is a small farm.My source on this is the farm-beginnings class I took a few years ago. It’s tough out there
(DIR) Post #AkBtOicuMryOKDSB1c by cy@fedicy.us.to
2024-07-22T14:01:27Z
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Economics don't make small farming impractical if you don't have Saudi oil to power and build your giant farming machines and manufacture your herbicides and pesticides. Small farms suddenly stop failing economically, without all the unfair amounts of aid propping up the big ones. For an example of this, see the Great Depression, but play the tape in reverse.
(DIR) Post #AkBvqXk8cpnQaUEMe8 by jamiemccarthy@mastodon.social
2024-07-22T14:12:18Z
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@cy Shrug. People like $1.49 hamburgers, and politicians like votes. I’m vegan, I’m opposed to ethanol, and I generally support organic farming, so I stand against all of this, but that’s what’s driving it. Can’t wave a wand and restructure society
(DIR) Post #AkBvqYhL4j9RY5vdvE by cy@fedicy.us.to
2024-07-22T14:29:05Z
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Well, I'd agree we need to change farming practices. Data centers are still disgustingly wasteful.