I agree that water is an important resource but the wording of "consumption" always rubbed me the wrong way. Is the water contaminated with chemicals? Maybe heat? Can people or wildlife consume it? Can you use rainwater?
I agree that water is an important resource but the wording of "consumption" always rubbed me the wrong way
While the Earth is (mostly[1]) a closed system when it comes to water, any particular region on Earth is not a closed system with respect to clean drinking water.
Deplete groundwater reserves faster than they refill? No more water for you. Raise the ambient temperature far enough that the rainclouds go somewhere cooler? No more water for you. As long as your usage is below the replacement rate, all seems well. Imbalance the system, and you have indeed "consumed" your local water supply.
Is the water contaminated with chemicals? Maybe heat?
Typically yes. Definitely yes.
Can people or wildlife consume it?
With enough water purification infrastructure, sure. I'm not aware of very many datacenters installing such infrastructure.
Can you use rainwater?
It's all rainwater, whether directly or indirectly. The question is what would have benefited from that rainwater had it not been redirected to a datacenter?
Imbalance the system, and you have indeed "consumed" your local water supply.
Right, but this is not what is reported by "water consumption". It would be much better to have some kind of index (probably multiple) that estimates how close a particular feature of the water system is to a problem. Is the temperature too high, is there too high a concentration of some contaminant, etc etc.
I am not! You said that there are certain tipping points which, when reached, mean that your local water source might be "consumed" - meaning it does not regenerate and goes away permanently. By contrast, in the link you gave (and everywhere else), water consumption means that you used some water. It doesn't say anything about whether you are near a tipping point. They are totally different concepts!
Comments
I agree that water is an important resource but the wording of "consumption" always rubbed me the wrong way. Is the water contaminated with chemicals? Maybe heat? Can people or wildlife consume it? Can you use rainwater?
While the Earth is (mostly[1]) a closed system when it comes to water, any particular region on Earth is not a closed system with respect to clean drinking water.
Deplete groundwater reserves faster than they refill? No more water for you. Raise the ambient temperature far enough that the rainclouds go somewhere cooler? No more water for you. As long as your usage is below the replacement rate, all seems well. Imbalance the system, and you have indeed "consumed" your local water supply.
Typically yes. Definitely yes.
With enough water purification infrastructure, sure. I'm not aware of very many datacenters installing such infrastructure.
It's all rainwater, whether directly or indirectly. The question is what would have benefited from that rainwater had it not been redirected to a datacenter?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_escape
Right, but this is not what is reported by "water consumption". It would be much better to have some kind of index (probably multiple) that estimates how close a particular feature of the water system is to a problem. Is the temperature too high, is there too high a concentration of some contaminant, etc etc.
You are make a semantic distinction here, but "consumptive use" is a term of art in modelling water usage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumptive_water_use
I am not! You said that there are certain tipping points which, when reached, mean that your local water source might be "consumed" - meaning it does not regenerate and goes away permanently. By contrast, in the link you gave (and everywhere else), water consumption means that you used some water. It doesn't say anything about whether you are near a tipping point. They are totally different concepts!
Yes but: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumptive_water_use#:~:text=...
You can't drink it once it's gone through a bunch of mouldy pipes, no.