• WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    Generating power with coal/nuclear/hydro uses water, and since the LLM data centers use power that would otherwise not have been generated, this is one of the ways that they use up water.

    I doubt those are constantly consuming large amounts of water. hydro just lets it through, and nuclear has chained closed loop systems, and they also let through some after the last loop

    • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      A hydro reservoir has much higher evaporation than if there was no reservoir. That’s usually a big part of the discussion when a downstream nation objects against another nation building a dam upstream from them.

      Depending on the source, nuclear uses a bit more/a bit less water than coal. But they are in the same order of magnitude.

      Source: https://visualizingenergy.org/what-methods-of-electricity-generation-use-the-most-water/

      Ps: biomass power generation is a crime against nature.

      • WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        A hydro reservoir has much higher evaporation than if there was no reservoir.

        oh, I wasn’t aware of that, makes sense.

        Ps: biomass power generation is a crime against nature.

        why, what’s the problem with that?

        edit: just opened the page to see the stats better, and yeah, I see now