Small Town Residents Fight Back Against Google's Greed

[Donkees]

Nov 6, 2021

Google is racing to win approval for two massive new data centers—which use millions of gallons of water—in a small, drought-stricken farming town in Oregon. Local residents have united to fight the tech giant and preserve their water access. The key vote is this Monday.

Neither The Dalles city council nor Google will reveal how much water the data centers will use. Google says it's a "trade secret." The council also just voted to give Google a large tax break for the centers.

[OhZone]

1. Do datas centers use much water?

I thought everything was air cooled.

[Donkees]

4. The Secret Cost of Google's Data Centers: Billions of Gallons of Water to Cool Servers

Alphabet’s Google is building more data centers across the U.S. to power online searches, web advertising and cloud services. The company has boasted for years that these huge computer-filled warehouses are energy efficient and environmentally friendly. But there’s a cost that the company tries to keep secret. These facilities use billions of gallons of water, sometimes in dry areas that are struggling to conserve this limited public resource.

Google considers its water use a proprietary trade secret and bars even public officials from disclosing the company’s consumption. But information has leaked out, sometimes through legal battles with local utilities and conservation groups. In 2019 alone, Google requested, or was granted, more than 2.3 billion gallons of water for data centers in three different states, according to public records posted online and legal filings.

https://time.com/5814276/google-data-centers-water/

[OhZone]

5. O_O

Chrome books need nuclear power & cooling towers!?

[pecosbob]

2. America, racing to the bottom

[Tetrachloride]

3. Monopolistic action. Environmental 2nd degree murder

racketeering.

[SergeStorms]

6. It seems to me...

that Google should go where the water is, and not exhaust an areas limited supply just because it's conveniently located for them.

The Great Lakes region has 20% of the world's fresh water supply, and could certainly use the employment it would bring to old rust-belt areas.

No, it's not conveniently located near it's headquarters, but since everything is just ones and zeros flying through the air anyway, why do they have to have everything centrally located?

Go where your resources are located, Google. In the winter just open the doors. Natural cooling in abundance.

[The Jungle 1]

7. Pa is polluted and our politicians do not care.

We have over 5000 miles of dead streams. These are streams with no life in them because of acid mine drainage. The coal barons killed miners and destroyed our environments. So how does our state government react to this historical disaster. They allow frackers to destroy our ground water with little or no laws an no enforcement. Josh Shapiro our democratic Attorney General is attempting to go after the frackers but I do not hold much hope.
Small town American citizens need more power to fight these polluters.