r/austechnology • u/austechnology-bot • Aug 27 '26

A proposed AI data centre in north-west Tasmania plans to cool its facilities using water that it trucks in.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-27/firmus-truck-water-rainwater-cool-wesley-vale-ai-data-centre/107083230
76 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

8

u/Direct_Substance8317 Aug 28 '26

If it is a closed loop system they will truck it in and then just top it up with treated tap water. No biggie. Power may be a different issue.

0

u/sweatshoes101 Aug 29 '26

Hahaha mate please study up what a "closed loop system" actually is in the industrial setting.
The chemicals acting as coolant will be similar to a boiler/steam production, if this has a partial leak there are problems. This is hard to find and will be left to the data centre so they have already priced in the environmental impact fine from council.
The wast heat removal is the issue this is the drinking water used to cool the "system" this maybe evaporative or just high temp heat exchanger.
This hot water has to go somewhere and down the drain is not good enough for anyone.
Let alone the increased required electricity that we have been told over the last 30 years is not good for the environment & we couldn't do it for small business or Australian industry but bring in the massive corporations from America and all is forgiven and screw the little guys who have to live around the social and environmental impact area.

Mark my words this will not be good for the population in 5 years time we taxpayers will be footing another clean up bill.

8

u/Direct_Substance8317 Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26

Have you ever been in a modern datacentre? Or near one? I am working on one now. 5 MW of compressors and fans. A CoP of at least 4, so pumping a total of 20 MW of heat. Water usage, next to nothing. Only waste was when the system was flushed. But even that was nothing since the water was circulated and filtered, only the muck got disposed of. Top up is done by a small 1 kW pump once in a blue moon.

5

u/StinkyStinkSupplies Aug 29 '26

I can't wait for these weirdos to move onto the next conspiracy.

I liked it better when they were complaining about chemtrails.

4

u/Cool_Purple_4414 Aug 29 '26

I think like 90% of (online) people hate datacentres due to the connection with AI. Both have their upsides and downsides and both are the future. And we're in an anti-intellectualism age so there is 0 nuance and 0 understanding from all those people.

1

u/StinkyStinkSupplies Aug 31 '26

Yeah agreed, they wouldn't know what a datacentre even is if it weren't for AI.

One could open down the street from them and they wouldn't notice.

2

u/TheAIFutureIsNow Aug 30 '26

The chemtrail people are actually on the opposite side of the AI Luddites.

2

u/Hasra23 Aug 30 '26

Yeah I don't get the whole water usage thing, even if we did start to run out of water it's trivially easy to take salt out of sea water, it's not like humanity is just going to go extinct because of water shortages when 70% of the planet is water

1

u/reegeck Sep 02 '26

Don't be so quick to dismiss scepticism. You don't have to know much history to know that both people and the environment have been screwed again and again by new industry developments.

It's much better for people to er on the side of caution. I'll grant you that plenty of people go into the conspiracy side of things but for the most part this is just a healthy attitude towards making sure industrial growth can't run unchecked.

1

u/CommSecTom Aug 30 '26

In the past they have used cooling towers right? So quite a bit of water lost to evaporation, same as lots of large scale air conditioning systems in shopping centres and larger buildings.

Are they moving away from that to just air based heat transfer systems?

I’ve been curious about this for a while.

I’m not anti AI at all, my only concern would be the potential noise and if that’s going to affect people living near by. Other than that we need to progress with the technology in the modern world, no point being left behind.

1

u/Direct_Substance8317 Aug 30 '26

I wouldn't like a datacentre near me and yes, they consume a lot of power, but they can do so using very little water. The water is run through heat exchangers to cool the air, like you said, which is then forced through racks. You can also run 4°C water straight to cooling blocks on CPUs. Heat pumps used to cool the water can even use CO2 as a refrigerant which is much better than conventional gasses.

So yes, the tech is getting much better. Fortunately Australia is looking into mandating closed loop systems.

0

u/SlaveryVeal Aug 29 '26

Shh data centre bad.

1

u/lunchbox651 Aug 29 '26

That's not how it works in a DC though, look into cold aisle containment systems.
AI DCs are a problem but the way they use water is the least of their issues.

5

u/anonymity_clause Aug 28 '26

On behalf of all Australians who know

/SIGH

3

u/DoubleDecaff Aug 28 '26

Can they just don't build shit instead?

3

u/Accurate_Ad_3233 Aug 28 '26

Trucks in from where? And what about the power usage? And has anyone figured out yet WHY 'we' need this monstrosities?

3

u/louisa1925 Aug 28 '26

It will be used to governmentally stalk people. Though I do hope it does get used in more appropriate ways. I don't really see why we need them.

1

u/Accurate_Ad_3233 Aug 28 '26

No I think you were right the first time. :)

https://goldenorder.substack.com/p/ai-data-centers-the-real-reason-theyre

1

u/yolk3d Aug 28 '26

“Golden Order” sounds like a conspiracy blogger.

1

u/Accurate_Ad_3233 Aug 28 '26

So when you read the article which of the facts do you think were incorrect?

2

u/yolk3d Aug 28 '26

Author is very “my thesis”, “my read”. Facts mostly check out, conclusion doesn’t follow. He says himself it’s his own read, not something he can source. The core argument is that surveillance needs compute and data centres are compute. So does Netflix. The drone quote is just an investor asking how you protect a $75 billion asset from sabotage. Pension money funds every big buildout, that’s what pension funds do. The World Bank publishes its digital ID work openly, and his own footnote links to it. The Nazi and Reichstag material proves nothing, and he cites a document he admits might be satire. He also skips the obvious explanation: it’s a capex race between a few tech giants, possibly a bubble. The real issues are water, power bills, tax breaks and rushed zoning.

1

u/Accurate_Ad_3233 Aug 28 '26

OK so he was upfront about everything including that his conclusion was just his opinion based on current evidence. You should have led with that. :)

1

u/yolk3d Aug 28 '26

And you should have not used someone opinion piece as evidence that data centres will be “used to governmentally stalk people”. And my initial comment was just that the bloggers substack blog title sounded like a conspiracy theory blogger. Don’t strawman.

1

u/Accurate_Ad_3233 Aug 28 '26

And do you have a better explanation for the current global rollout of these things?

1

u/yolk3d Aug 28 '26

Yeah: companies think AI is the next platform and are terrified of being the one that underinvested. That’s it. Nvidia’s revenue, the hyperscaler capex reports and the debt they’re raising are all public, and a lot of people think it’s a bubble. That explains the speed better than a conspiracy plan does, because a plan wouldn’t be this wasteful or this publicly financed.

Also I don’t need a better explanation. You made the claim, the burden’s yours.

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1

u/SituationSmooth9165 Aug 28 '26

Just use solar and wind

0

u/f1na1 Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26

Because reddit and every google search you do is run at a data centre

4

u/Flamesake Aug 29 '26 edited Aug 29 '26

Funny, reddit and Google seemed to be working just fine before the huge push in the last few years to build out so many more data centres. 

1

u/Beltox2pointO Sep 02 '26

It's almost... like the focus has shifted to Data Centres..

2

u/nath1234 Aug 28 '26

Jeezus. Could you make a worse idea worse?

1

u/n2o_spark Aug 28 '26

I thought initial conversation around cooling was a closed loop system. But it's starting to sound like a combination closed and evap type? I think if they can't survive on rainwater alone, they need to re-evaluate their cooling options.

1

u/yolk3d Aug 28 '26

Literally none of you read the article.

The company wrote that because there was no TasWater connection to the site, it planned to use rainwater and water from state-owned company Tasmanian Irrigation.

Tasmanian Irrigation supplies water to agricultural users and said at the time it could not legally provide water to data centres.

The development application shows Firmus now plans to use rainwater and water delivered by truck.

"We expect the trucking option to be needed only in extreme dry periods," the application states.

The biggest water requirement is for cooling, which Firmus states will only be required on days when the temperature exceeds 26 degrees Celsius.

1

u/Ergomann Aug 29 '26

Somehow they have trades and money to build data centres but not housing? Weird