• aramis87@fedia.io
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    9 hours ago

    two high-capacity water connections were not being properly monitored. One had been installed without the utility’s knowledge, and another was not tied to a billing account.

    Yeah, you don’t just “accidentally” install an “extra” water pipeline like that.

    • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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      9 hours ago

      Funny story there.

      I once moved in to a property development where the development collectively paid for water access.

      The water was turned on for the developers during construction, but when construction was finished, the city closed the account without remembering to transfer to the strata. So the strata went for almost 10 years without paying beyond the base rate for water, before someone investigated. At that point, the city only back-dated the water use bill to the start of the year, thankfully for the homeowners.

      So yeah, it happens, probably pretty regularly.

      • Pyr@lemmy.ca
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        6 hours ago

        I just bought a house which has a pump and water line for garden hoses and irrigation

        I have no idea where the water is coming from

        The house has a well, but the irrigation system is completely separate and has a pipe running somewhere that I have no idea about.

  • Gork@sopuli.xyz
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    10 hours ago

    $147,474 / 29,000,000 gal = $0.0051 / gal

    A homeowner in Fayetteville GA would probably be paying anywhere from $30-$80 or so per month, but they certainly aren’t getting nearly as much water per dollar as this data center.

  • Akh@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Got to keep these servers cool so elon can have grok generate porn…

  • Pyr@lemmy.ca
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    6 hours ago

    Honestly question though …

    Does a data centre actually pollute or dirty the water when used to cool it’s stuff?

    Could it not just take the water, run it through the system, heat the water a little bit to cool the stuff it needs, then run the water back into the city lines which might even save people a few cents on the water heating bills?

    • null@lemmy.zip
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      8 minutes ago

      I was wondering the same thing. Turns out thermal pollution is a thing. They would heat a lake at that rate.

      There are ways to cool water and recycle it. If they are using that much water, I bet they cannot cycle water because it wouldn’t cool fast enough.

    • Encrypt-Keeper@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      heat the water a little bit to cool the stuff it needs

      No. Heating the water a little bit would not be sufficient at cooling what the datacenters need to cool. You have to heat the water a whole hell of a lot.