Is AI Consuming Your Water and Power?

I’m intrigued about everything AI, how could I not be?
My professional qualifications in analyzing AI focus on the power consumption issue.
As a youth I did an electrical apprenticeship in Aotearoa New Zealand with the Government department with the dystopian title of the Ministry of Works, I was a civilian working on Whenuapai and Hobsonville RNZAF airbases. I lived in the barracks, ate in the canteens, board and lodgings were almost free, $7bucks for a kid who was earning $44/week! My income was 6 times my basic outgoings, compare that to our youths’ prospects today!
A decade later I then went on to get a high voltage switching and protection qualification from the London Electricity Board.
That led to me then becoming the Electrical Engineer at Sun Alliance Computer Centre in Lennox Woods in the south of England. All the billing for the UK, Europe and Africa was processed in our complex.
In 1987 it was the data center of its time. A so-called “Intelligent building”!
It also turned out to be a backup computer center for the British Military, I suspect many of these data centers will be entangled on the electrically important detail of having suitable redundances as backups during conflict.
It’s ‘common sense’ from a militaristic perspective.
At Lennox Woods I was responsible for maintaining the hardware of IBM mainframes, that were cooled with Anton Liebert chillers, that literally pumped coolant through the mainframes to cool them, all backed up with incredible “Uninterrupted Power Supplies.” more commonly known as UPS systems.
The coolant is then pumped through cooling fans/radiators on the roof for additional cooling before being returned back into the cooling cycle.
In data centres 80% of all the cooling water evaporates, it never occurred to me at the time that evaporation had consequences. Mea culpa.
Additionally, as ambient temperatures increase this ‘Free cooling’ via roof top cooling fans/towers will become redundant due to higher air temperatures.
None of our old engineering specs hold up anymore, already. Nuclear plants often have to shut down when cooling water is too hot to operate the plants.
So much for Nuclear being an option on a broiling planet.

According to Cloudtech
“Hyperscale facilities operated by companies like Google demonstrate the true scale of the challenge. Google’s data centres average 550,000 gallons (2.1 million litres) daily, totalling approximately 200 million gallons (760 million litres) annually per facility. Microsoft’s global operations consumed nearly 6.4 million cubic metres of water (approximately 1.69 billion gallons) in their most recent reporting year – a 34% increase from the previous year.”

From a LiveScience article “There are 32 different ways AI can go rogue, scientists say — from hallucinating answers to a complete misalignment with humanity”
There is a technical glitch in the following video from the 5 to the 8-minute mark, skip those few minutes.

“Lennox Wood has closed its doors for the final time after 40 years.”
“New research has created the first comprehensive effort to categorize all the ways AI can go wrong, with many of those behaviors resembling human psychiatric disorders.”
I commented on the coming tsunami of grief in our youth and one listener asked if I had written on that topic, I have indeed: The Coming Tsunami of Grief.
“The data centers that power artificial intelligence require huge amounts of electricity. Some experts estimate we’ll need as much as 25% more electricity by 2030, and 78% by 2050, to meet this demand alone.” AI’s Massive Energy Demands 


Data Centre’s are accelerating the Water Vapor Feedback Loop.
“Among many vital processes, the role of water vapor is crucial. This natural element acts as a potent greenhouse gas itself. It intensifies the warming process through a feedback loop that can amplify existing changes in temperature. Understanding how water vapor interacts with heat in our atmosphere is critical for accurate climate models.”
How The Water Vapor Feedback Loop Intensifies Climate Change
How AI Data centres are causing droughts in the USA.

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About Kevin Hester

I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.