Delete Emails - Save Water?
Author
Discussion

andyb28

Original Poster:

985 posts

134 months

Wednesday
quotequote all
I am not even shocked anymore at stuff like this clap

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/uk-gove...

rodericb

8,027 posts

142 months

Thursday
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ha ha, note that it's YOU who has to delete your old emails, which is a spit into the ocean compared to what computing power the government is consuming every second of every day.....

Lucas Ayde

3,932 posts

184 months

Thursday
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Don't worry - the government will have copies of any 'interesting' ones.

Sheets Tabuer

20,381 posts

231 months

Thursday
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Is this so they can make space for all the monitoring they're doing?

Brainpox

4,171 posts

167 months

Thursday
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Excellent, that'll help the car washes and patio cleaners stay open a bit longer.

mmm-five

11,802 posts

300 months

Thursday
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Ban every MP from drinking at a subsidised bar in the HOC/HOP - and that should save millions of gallons of water and jiggawatts of energy (from the production/processing/transporting of the beverages) - and reduce the tax bill from them!

Gary C

13,891 posts

195 months

Thursday
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Just ban crypto use.

andyb28

Original Poster:

985 posts

134 months

Thursday
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The biggest problem I have with it is that freeing up space on servers hard drives will not make any difference in the cooling of the server. If anything, the CPU involved in people deleting stuff will increase CPU.

Secondly, I have been to most of the datacentres in the UK and they have all been air cooled.

We are govererned by idiots with no industry experience.

skyebear

957 posts

22 months

Thursday
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What about if I share a bath with my computer - will that save water?

Xenoous

1,788 posts

74 months

Thursday
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skyebear said:
What about if I share a bath with my computer - will that save water?
A toaster might... hehe

JoshSm

1,574 posts

53 months

Thursday
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They're concerned (and stupid) enough to publish something like this, while also pushing through new datacenter construction as CNI.

So do they think it's a problem or not?

I guess the answer is it's just morons, all the way down.

geeks

10,544 posts

155 months

Thursday
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This is up there with "when are you going to stop using algorithms?"

Mr Whippy

31,281 posts

257 months

Thursday
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Wtf?

I assume these data centres are closed loop, like a car radiator?

Ie, they don’t just pump water through and down a drain hehe

Utter fking morons.


The fact they can even fall for this is disturbing. If in doubt say nothing.




Just reading, in dry environments open loop might be used because the extra humidity isn’t an issue.

Wtf, put it on a river. Or next to the sea.

Just evaporating off drinking water into the atmosphere does seem utterly bonkers, I’d hope we don’t do that in the UK, and if we do, what dipst gave that the go ahead?

Edited by Mr Whippy on Thursday 14th August 15:17

98elise

30,052 posts

177 months

Thursday
quotequote all
Mr Whippy said:
Wtf?

I assume these data centres are closed loop, like a car radiator?

Ie, they don’t just pump water through and down a drain hehe

Utter fking morons.
If they are air conditioned then it's likely the chillers are cooled by water, and the water is cooled by evaporation in a cooling tower. In that case yes they are using water.

They could be also air cooled, but the few I've worked on have have been water/cooling tower


Edited to answer your edit

Mr Whippy said:
Just reading, in dry environments open loop might be used because the extra humidity isn’t an issue.

Wtf, put it on a river. Or next to the sea.

Just evaporating off drinking water into the atmosphere does seem utterly bonkers, I’d hope we don’t do that in the UK, and if we do, what dipst gave that the go ahead?

Edited by Mr Whippy on Thursday 14th August 15:17
Thats how a large proportion of industrial A/C works, not just data centres.

You can use river water (Shell Centre in London does) but that has its own issues. You're now having to deal with all sorts of debris running through your heat exchangers, and you're dumping additional heat into the river.


Edited by 98elise on Thursday 14th August 17:17

motco

16,771 posts

262 months

Thursday
quotequote all
andyb28 said:
I am not even shocked anymore at stuff like this clap

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/uk-gove...
I can hear Justin Rowlatt in my head with his accusatory tone "Climate experts say..."

Mr Whippy

31,281 posts

257 months

Thursday
quotequote all
98elise said:
Mr Whippy said:
Wtf?

I assume these data centres are closed loop, like a car radiator?

Ie, they don’t just pump water through and down a drain hehe

Utter fking morons.
If they are air conditioned then it's likely the chillers are cooled by water, and the water is cooled by evaporation in a cooling tower. In that case yes they are using water.

They could be also air cooled, but the few I've worked on have have been water/cooling tower


Edited to answer your edit

Mr Whippy said:
Just reading, in dry environments open loop might be used because the extra humidity isn’t an issue.

Wtf, put it on a river. Or next to the sea.

Just evaporating off drinking water into the atmosphere does seem utterly bonkers, I’d hope we don’t do that in the UK, and if we do, what dipst gave that the go ahead?

Edited by Mr Whippy on Thursday 14th August 15:17
Thats how a large proportion of industrial A/C works, not just data centres.

You can use river water (Shell Centre in London does) but that has its own issues. You're now having to deal with all sorts of debris running through your heat exchangers, and you're dumping additional heat into the river.


Edited by 98elise on Thursday 14th August 17:17
Well they're going to struggle justifying operation over people being able to drink water to survive and stay nice smelling.

This won't end well if datacentres can't find closed loop systems (or just dump it all to air)

Oooor, get this, bit out-field, stop using AI constantly for it's largely garbage outputs, at huge energy cost.

Ie, random googling, AI answers, with a footnote, might be wrong. No st. How much water and energy did that just cost us all?

https://spectrum.ieee.org/ai-misinformation-llm-bu...

rodericb

8,027 posts

142 months

Yesterday (08:17)
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The one thing which the Toms Hardware article didn't really do that well was to direct people to the press release:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-drough...

Maybe it was someone clever who thought they stick some outrage bait in there (and right at the end) so people will read the press release but reading through, it seems that it's pretty much long-term mismanagement which has resulted in water infrastructure which leaks like a sieve!

andyb28

Original Poster:

985 posts

134 months

Yesterday (09:20)
quotequote all
rodericb said:
The one thing which the Toms Hardware article didn't really do that well was to direct people to the press release:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-drough...

Maybe it was someone clever who thought they stick some outrage bait in there (and right at the end) so people will read the press release but reading through, it seems that it's pretty much long-term mismanagement which has resulted in water infrastructure which leaks like a sieve!
Reminds me of the Ricky Gervais safe sex leaflet. Its home time, they wanted 1 more for the list.

bad company

20,679 posts

282 months

Yesterday (09:37)
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Gary C said:
Just ban crypto use.
Excellent idea. clap

Discendo Discimus

727 posts

48 months

Yesterday (09:42)
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I used to manage the install of adiabatic (water) air conditioning systems in data centers.
They work by wetting a large "pad" *basically a big sponge) and passing air over it to cool via evaporation.

The amount of water they use is astronomical, I remember BT really kicking off when they first realised.
DX or mechanical cooling is closed loop and better, but worse for the environment and more expensive.

Asking us to delete our emails to save water when systems like this exist, not to mention the amount of water that is currently leaking out of our out-dated sewers and water supplies is an absolute joke.