Data Center Water Use IS A Problem

#DataCenters use less water than some other industries. But Data Centers ARE a problem for water systems.

Both things are true at the same time. Despite some experts selling the former while diminishing the latter (more important) statement.

How can both be true?

Point #1: hashtag#Water (un)availability is a very real problem at the local level (across swathes of the US).

- hashtag#SanMarcos TX provides 19M gallons of water/day to 75k people.
- San Marcos TX has also been in drought conditions since March 2022!
- Developers are bringing ~200MW data centers to San Marcos.
- The data centers will use 2M gallons of water/day, a 10% increase in water utilization for a town under drought!
- For the Vagabond Vintage store owner in San Marcos, the drought is a real problem and the data center is (consequently) a direct problem.

Point #2: To generate power for new data centers we will require lots and lots of water.

- A 200MW data center will require lots of electricity/power.
- Power from newly built gas-fired plants will require ~4M gallons of water/day.
- That’s 25% increase in water usage to serve the data center. In a place that is in drought conditions!!!

Same experts are suggesting that most data centers will move to air-cooled (and not water-cooled) systems.

Well, an air-cooling system for a data center uses ~20% more power than water-cooling. Moving to air-cooling does not actually reduce the (direct + indirect) water use for a data center. See my second point above.

Real (inconvenient) problems become ‘fake’ (as one of the experts says in his article) when we choose to ignore nuance. A simple analysis of the systems at play (not just one sub-system) very quickly shows where we have to pay attention.

Data centers will draw on local resources (water and electricity). US cities and towns are terribly strained (economically and ecologically).

Simple integrated analysis will prevent catastrophic unintended consequences.

As the dad from ‘Kim’s Convenience’ would say ‘You can do better (experts)!’. Let’s fix the problems instead of trying to wish them away.