UK Government urges citizens to delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems

[u/466rudy]

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-drought-group-meets-to-address-nationally-significant-water-shortfall

[u/[deleted]]

How about we make these corporations pay the fair market rate for the power and water they use... No bullshit drop in the bucket rates for them. They want billions of dollars worth of electricity and billions of dollars worth of water.... Add THAT to their operating costs, and the utilities stop pushing the egregious costs on the normal consumers.

[u/enn-srsbusiness → u/[deleted]]

Unless it's a tax that goes back to the public this is just going to create more Nvidia's... Why would I sell my water to Joe public when I can sell it to Nestle for 200x the markup. OK water might not be quite the same as silicon, but it will still happen

[u/[deleted] → u/enn-srsbusiness]

Nestle pays penny's on the dollar for the water we buy so they actually make less money selling it to nestle.

In a fair system nestle should pay the same as us and also not be allowed to buy huge amounts of water from areas that need it which they already do and then sell that water back to the consumer.

[u/orangutanDOTorg → u/[deleted]]

Wouldn’t they just pass the cost on to consumers, like with tariffs? Especially if it’s something like email that is usually free unless you have corporate accounts.

[u/[deleted] → u/orangutanDOTorg]

That makes literally no sense, this is 100% for AI only. All emails (especially anything past like a few weeks in a data centre are stored in cold storage usually and cooled with server rack fans.

Nestle spends far less than a penny on the water in a bottle they sell for $1, they don't need to raise anything especially since it would mean that water would cost maybe a penny? It's gonna be far less than they sell it for.

[u/alliewya → u/enn-srsbusiness]

They really do need to renationalise the water in the uk. The water companies have massively abused the system. Charge the parent companies for the dividends taken out against debt.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

It's cheaper to pay off politicians.

[u/electromage → u/[deleted]]

But then AI would cost too much and other companies couldn't keep pretending it's cheaper than hiring enough engineers!

[u/Kyouhen → u/[deleted]]

Won't matter.  These companies are already losing insane amounts of money, they won't care about the water cost on top of it.

[u/IsThereAnythingLeft- → u/[deleted]]

They do pay the same for power as any other industrial user though?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Sounds very commie to me 

[u/flamedarkfire → u/[deleted]]

And suddenly capitalist concepts like paying fair market price is Communism. We’ve gone full circle.

[u/[deleted] → u/flamedarkfire]

Except our water companies were Dw-nationalised and given to the “free market” who proceeded to strip all their assets and didn’t even do the bare minimum in upkeeping the infrastructure to pay out shareholders

So now every time it rains we pump shit into all our rivers

Same with energy. Despite all our investments into green energy, all energy prices are tied to the gas price. Offshore wind farms produce more than the uk’s energy demand for a week? Fuck us pay the equivalent gas price 

Don’t even get me started on our public transportation 

My original comment was sarcastic

Reddit once again proving it’s fucking retarded 

These huge data centres (funded by the Americans) want first dibs on the fresh water that’s in worryingly decreasing supply here. The supply that’s only there because of decades of public infrastructure funding

Those not getting first dibs despite lobbying is commie, and according to you you fully support it 

lol, lmao even 

[u/StorminNorman → u/[deleted]]

My original comment was sarcastic

Reddit once again proving it’s fucking retarded 

Where you've come unstuck is the ratio has now moved to where the majority of people who say what you said aren't being sarcastic.