UK government inexplicably tells citizens to delete old emails and pictures to save water during national drought — 'data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems'

The UK government has instructed citizens to delete old emails and pictures to help conserve water, following the announcement of a "nationally significant" water shortage. However, the advice isn't up to snuff, as deleting emails and pictures should have no significant effect on water consumption, and might even make it worse for data centers that use certain types of evaporative cooling.

Guidance published Tuesday states "the current water shortfall situation in England is now defined as a 'nationally significant incident.'" Five areas of the country are officially in drought, with six more experiencing prolonged dry weather following the six driest months leading up to July since 1976. According to the report, rivers and reservoir levels continue to recede, and August isn't looking much wetter.

Naturally, the government is trying to encourage citizens to save water, and lists a number of very reasonable actions concerned residents can take to reduce their water usage. Measures such as collecting rainwater, fixing a leaky toilet, and using wastewater to water plants, alongside reducing shower times and not watering your lawn, can help reduce water usage. Finally, the article states, "Delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems."

As some onlookers have noted, the recommendation rings a little hollow when juxtaposed next to the UK government's commitment to turbocharge growth using AI. Perhaps more pertinently, the advice rings hollow because it's likely not very sensible. While it's true that data centers do consume large amounts of water through evaporative cooling (where it's used), the vast majority of this power draw comes from CPU and GPU computation, not the storage of pictures and emails. Once the data is stored, the storage devices generate very little heat and are often spun down (placed into low- or no-power states) and called upon only when needed.

The impact of an individual deleting emails and old photos on data center water usage is likely to be so infinitesimal as to be considered futile. In fact, rooting out old emails and photos and deleting them from your online archives might well use more energy and water than storing them in the first place, making this a counterproductive exercise.

Furthermore, if the data you're deleting to try and save water is stored in a data center outside of the UK, you'll actually end up saving water (or more likely not, as we've discussed) in some other country. The UK doesn't have universal laws mandating that citizen data has to be stored within the country, so this is a real possibility.

So if you're in the UK and looking to save water during this particularly dry spell, probably best to try some of the other options first.

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