maybe i should have been more specific: i did not mean the total energy usage of datacenters vs agriculture. i was talking about putting them into relation. not sure which relation makes the most sense: total PJ / total locations ? total PJ / ha land used ? total PJ / total employee ?

it doesn’t matter which relation though. the business of datacenters is to put lightning into magic minerals to make funny things…

while you are absolutely right in saying energy production is an engineering problem, it is not a simple problem. water is for sure more severe, as there is a finite amount fresh water to consume. but especially now, when communities are somehow expected to pay for the increased energy usage of the local datacenter, it seems cynical to me, when you say:

Energy generation is a solved problem, you just throw money at panels and batteries for clean energy.

as humans we generally need more and more energy. while we get better at producing it, we are still struggling at keeping up with the demand. so much so, that places that decided against nuclear energy are thinking about new reactors. i won’t go into the whole nuclear discussion. but i would say those discussions are telling how important and non-trivial a constant output of electricity is.