Comment by stoobs
6 months ago
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.