If Microsoft can reactivate a nuclear plant for a datacenter, why can't they also build their own water infrastructure too?
Cool the datacenter with brackish groundwater instead of drinking water. Do the necessary filtration and desal to make the cooling system *produce* drinking water increase of consuming it.
@gooba42 they can. If they don't it's because society didn't incentivize them to do it.
If you under price drinking water then it's going to be used instead of more expensive purified water.
@volkris Then we need to tax the use of drinking water for purposes other than drinking.
@gooba42 It's probably worse than that.
I'm not bothering to look it up (correct me if you know better) but I imagine it's a municipal water supply. I've seen this in other places. It's not just about taxing the use of water for purposes other than drinking, but the city itself choosing to charge so little even for industrial purposes.
I even have in mind a case where the governmental board that sets the water price had a bunch of industrial Representatives on the board voting themselves low prices.
I consider it one of those examples of governmental action that impacts people pretty directly, but that people are generally unaware of because they're distracted by national politics that don't actually make that much difference in the end.
