Lies about Cape Town data centre water usage

mylesillidge

mylesillidge

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False information about new Cape Town data centre's 4.4-billion litre water usage

Estimates of the water consumption used for cooling a new data centre set to be built in Cape Town are inaccurate, as the facility will not use water-based cooling at all.

The City of Cape Town recently approved the zoning application by US firm Equinix for two hyperscale data centres. Equinix is among the world's largest data centre colocation firms.
 
RedViking said:
Of course. :ROFL: "You" are the reason the lie has spread. Need to choose your words a bit better

View attachment 1928093
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That's the whole point of journalism (/s). Publish the sensational side of the story. The next day publish a retraction. Twice as many clicks. Win bigly...
 
Gordon_R said:
That's the whole point of journalism (/s). Publish the sensational side of the story. The next day publish a retraction. Twice as many clicks. Win bigly...
Click to expand...
1. publish sensational story
2. many clicks
3. publish a retraction
4. many clicks

Unfortunately they do not take into account step 5 and 6
5. readers lose trust
6. publisher now gets ignored
 
So no "precise plans" have been supplied, but approval has been given. And it won't use water because the old datacenters don't. And it's all fear mongering and it won't get that bad. "We'll use non potable water" - extract from the ground water?

Sure.
 
An interesting point they gloss over in the article, if anything they are just moving some of the water usage off site
"The downside of this air cooled technology is that it uses more electricity, which can increase water consumption at the power source, but not to the extent that it would match the consumption of water-based cooling."
 
biena said:
1. publish sensational story
2. many clicks
3. publish a retraction
4. many clicks

Unfortunately they do not take into account step 5 and 6
5. readers lose trust
6. publisher now gets ignored
Click to expand...
This is South Africa we're talking about. We have been voting for the same government for thirty years. There is no losing of trust here.
 
juro said:
So no "precise plans" have been supplied, but approval has been given. And it won't use water because the old datacenters don't. And it's all fear mongering and it won't get that bad. "We'll use non potable water" - extract from the ground water?

Sure.
Click to expand...

This whole article is nonsense, because the recent court case was about zoning of the land, not actual construction plans, so there is plenty of time to object (again).

In the previous thread I mentioned that there is a wastewater treatment plant in that area. Plenty of non-potable water available, mostly used for irrigating golf courses. But they probably won't need any, if it is air cooled...
 
airborne said:
An interesting point they gloss over in the article, if anything they are just moving some of the water usage off site
"The downside of this air cooled technology is that it uses more electricity, which can increase water consumption at the power source, but not to the extent that it would match the consumption of water-based cooling."
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Notice the can, it depends on the power source, most renewable should not need that much water compared to coal/nuclear.
 
Johnatan56 said:
Notice the can, it depends on the power source, most renewable should not need that much water compared to coal/nuclear.
Click to expand...
You all keep saying water is “used” like its destroyed and gone forever into some kind of magical water oblivion. It’s being released again or evaporated. It will come back down I promise.
 
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