Comment by mytailorisrich
6 months ago
Not a single mention of the lack of reservoir capacity, with the last major reservoir built in 1992. Population has grown by 12 million / 21% since.
So turn the tap off while brushing your teeth and delete your old emails, and all will be fine.
Nine new reservoirs are planned by 2050 apparently. But as general point reservoirs are...
a) only part of the solution (water reuse schemes can be much cheaper and more effective) b) really difficult to build! Finding an appropriate location (google the Tryweryn reservoir in Wales for an example of the consequences of building one in a problematic location), planning constraints, environmental impact and subsequent pushback from locals and environment groups etc etc.
I don't disagree the UK needs more of reservoirs but they ain't trivial things to build. A good overview in this news article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2k147dkgx8o
Yes reservoirs "planned"... after 35 years of inaction.
More reservoirs are unavoidable. There is no alternative, "reuse" schemes are gimmicks.
seriously wtf ... it rains all the time there :)
Not anywhere near as much as the stereotypes/memes/etc would have you believe.
Most of the issue though is the water companies funnelling revenue to shareholders and not maintaining the network, so they lose an awful lot of water through leaking pipes.
The privatisation of critical utilities and infrastructure was such a stupid move.
That said, the recommendation is nonsense, emails and photos make up a tiny fraction of the cooling requirements for data centres.
Currently, because of the warming climate, the UK is actually getting more and more rain. But the problem is that rainfall is also getting more irregular, so it rains a lot then not at all for longer than before.
Overall this is "just" a question of infrastructure, which means long term investments that have dried up (pun intended!) decades ago.
The regulators determine how much the utilities can spend on maintenance and construction activities, not the companies.
If these activities were not capped, the companies are naturally incentivised to build more to boost their regulated asset value, which means they can make more money.
It is frequently damp, but that doesn't necessarily come with meaningful rainfall.
Rainfall in the UK isn't evenly distributed. The North and West gets much more rain, partly because they are closer to the Atlantic, and also because central hills (e.g. the Pennines) create rain shadows to their east. We also don't have any sort of national grid to move water from wet to drier areas.