Sydney Water is preparing for data centres to consume 25% of Sydney’s water by 2035.
No data centre operating in Australia is required to disclose how much water it consumes, nor is there a law currently requiring any of them to recycle it. And even if they do, the cooling process generates toxins hard to get rid of.
The water that passes through data centre cooling systems does not come out the same as it went in. Biocides, heavy metals, corrosion inhibitors and PFAS — forever chemicals that do not break down in the environment — accumulate in cooling water and are discharged into municipal water systems. Once in the supply, those chemicals cannot be removed by standard treatment.
This is already an issue in the US.
The peak industry body, Data Centre Australia, confirmed this year that questions about chemical waste from its members’ facilities were the first it had received on the subject. When those facilities eventually decommission their hardware, the environmental and financial cost of safe disposal will fall somewhere — on industry, on government, or on the public.
No Australian government has said which.
https://michaelwest.com.au/waste-tsunami-water-and-the-hidden-cost-of-ai-data-centres/
While I think it is fine to address it assuming the worst case forecast, there is next to no chance that many will ever be built. The AI, and tech industry are in a very obvious bubble, after all, and I’d be surprised if more than a handful end up being built and used.
We should damn well make sure they supply their own renewable energy to power any that are built, however. Otherwise they can fuck off.
I’m in Tasmania we have already had Firmus ignoring planning conditions, we need regulation so tight that the slightest breach results in people (or CEOs I’d accept either) spend a lot of time in prison. We need to make the current round of monorail salesmen sweat blood at every opportunity.