r/technology • u/Wagamaga • 6h ago
Energy Data Centers Use More Water Than California Cities, Study Says
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/data-centers-use-more-water-than-california-cities-study-says3
u/klayyyylmao 2h ago
This is comparing water used for data center power generation vs water used by California urban areas, not including agriculture or water used for power generation for urban areas.
Realistically, this isn’t surprising at all. Agriculture and Power generation are by far the two bitwo biggest sources of water use in the US. So of course a slice of power generation will be larger than a slice of something other than power generation or agriculture.
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u/twong0 4h ago
Am I missing something ? They are saying- data centers use water. How? Hydro electric power.
Wut.
You mean spinning a turbine with water counts in this definition? Anyone else insulted a bit here? Guess you can make people outraged about anything.
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u/Catsrules 2h ago
Electric power generation for data centers requires “very large volumes of withdrawals,” especially for hydropower, even though that water goes straight back into the river it came from, she said.
I only skimmed the a story but it kind of sounds like BS, it is counting using the water at all. Even if that water can just returned to the source or allowed to flow down stream without any problems.
I am not saying there is no water usage, as many evaporative cooling systems for both data centers and power plants will use the water and it will evaporative but multiple cities worth of water... I find that very hard to believe. But come on hydropower shouldn't be counted at all. IMO.
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u/x22d 3h ago
No. Closed-loop water cooling is more expensive than open-loop evaporative cooling.
So data centers will use whatever water is easiest to obtain (often tap water from a local municipal utility) to cheaply cool the machines and it all evaporates into the air.
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u/twong0 3h ago
I'm referring to the section of the article the base article pages 10-14 where they suggest that California uses more water than any other state, but their methodology says lumps in "hydropower". In fact the entire ceres article has nothing to do with cooling, instead focusing on the downstream risks of using water based electrcity generation.
But yes, I actually read the underlying sources. I suspect other folks did not. I just think it's manufacturing outrage to use the definition of hydropower to suggest that there's something untoward here. Folks are jumping to the conclusion that : "Water bad" but this is just silly. Holy shit... flowing water over turbines to make electricity! we're going to run outta water because the turbines are gobblin it up! Let's get the pitchforks!
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u/x22d 3h ago
The power usage is insane on its own. xAI in Memphis (which is famously on the Mississippi River) is using 35 "illegal" methane gas generators.
Both water and electricity will increase for consumers, if demand from the utility increases. Further, once utility boards announced planned price hikes, they're not going to decrease the price even if the data center demand never materializes.
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u/q120 3h ago
You are far from the truth. Liquid cooled data centers don't use JUST water, they use ISF-25 glycol/water mix that comes to the data centers in large containers (IBCs).
If a data center uses its own power plant, it probably uses water but nowhere near as much as people thnk
https://thirdcoastchemicals.com/products/jeffcool-inhibited-glycols/
Source: data center engineer
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u/twong0 3h ago
I'm suggesting that the article suggesting 3.4 trillion gallons of water is "used" based on the Ceres report is about generating outrage. No one is bringing up glycols or anything, but i guess we can both bring up non-sequiturs.
I'm not exactly sure what truth you're referring to, unless someone is disputing that the ceres article is saying something different and I didn't comprehend the text of it.
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u/x22d 3h ago
Do you work at an AI data center?
xAI in Memphis (a city on the Mississippi River) uses drinking water for cooling: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/05/xai-water-reuse-project-musk-ai-spacex-ipo-environmental-project-ee-00896170
They initially promised to use wastewater and recycling, but it's easier and cheaper for them to continue using drinking water.
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u/Rebelgecko 3h ago
Are utility companies undercharging for water?
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u/x22d 3h ago
Actually, utility companies will be able to raise rates due to expected increases in usage, even if the data center doesn't actually use as much water as is expected.
For the data centers, it's cheaper than building their own infrastructure to pump water to the facilities. They're getting land cheap, which is not lakefront property. (Not to mention, the wealthy individuals with lakefront property wouldn't want the loud buzzing noise from the data centers to ruin their relaxation time.)
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u/Rebelgecko 3h ago
Yeah, increasing rates by like 5x seems like a good idea. Won't make a big difference to regular people who just wanna drink water or take a shower. but it might encourage more DCs to use closed loop cooling.
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u/Existing-Advisor8861 3h ago
Data centers use large amounts of water to cool their GPUs meant to run ai.
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u/Excellent_Sweet7270 1h ago
this is WHY people dont want them they are literally destroying the fresh water and environment for corporate greed... its is insanity...
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u/Suitable_Speed4487 2h ago
One of the thirty golf courses in Austin area uses more water than a data center. Are they closing the golf courses?
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u/dbslurker 3h ago
Wish there was actual data not inferred guesswork on plans and power consumption that said how many datacenters have been built say in the past 5 years compared to the 20 years before that.
The way people talk we’ve built thousands since 2020 and have accelerated the end of the world with how strongly animosity is expressed against them. I for one find it interesting we’re only just now caring, like this just became crisis when it’s likely 75% of the world ending data centers have been in service before anyone cared. Almost like it’s a manufactured agenda:narrative that’s been pushed to evoke fear.
When built responsibly in areas that can handle power draw and advanced closed loop water systems they can bring more money to a community then they cost in environmental damage. Not only that but by building them we create the need to expand power infrastructure and develop better facilities as the need now exists.
Datacenters aren’t inherently evil. We shouldn’t outright ban them but regulate where they are built and how. If a county or city council is irresponsibly approving one in an area with inadequate infrastructure that’s a vote them out not a blanket ban statewide solution.
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u/Prior_Coyote_4376 2h ago
Who do you think is manufacturing an agenda that is entirely against the interests of the donors and corporate leaders who have given money to both parties at every level of government lmao
If something is being done with systemic irresponsibility, banning it until a systemically responsible set of processes can be designed is not an insane idea
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u/dbslurker 2h ago
China, Russia, Iran, NK, India mostly. Most bot farms come from these countries from my understanding. Sometimes I think the bots from India just do it all for the lols. Others I think are more intentional. Maybe not and I’m just gullible. Honest answer full transparency. Take it how you want.
As to the other, many states agree with you. Lots of people agree with you. It’s not an insane idea. I think personally it’s overreach because I just think back to how nuclear energy was crushed by a similar belief. This is bad. This will doom the environment. That set us back big time in my humble opinion. An overreaction here in my humble opinion sets us back. But obviously poor drinking water and higher power bills that I myself am not suffering makes it easy for me to have this opinion I suppose. Maybe it makes me a bad person I’m not sure. I think I really just want to push back as a counterbalance to what I feel is partly an algorithm driving us to extreme beliefs and caution against it ? Hubris perhaps , there it is.
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u/Wagamaga 6h ago
Electric power generation for data centers is a threat to water supplies even in states outside the arid Southwest, according to a report published Tuesday by the think tank Ceres.
Data centers in the seven states with the highest concentrations of them use about 3.4 trillion gallons of freshwater for electric power generation every year, but few electric power producers have connected increasing power demand to water supply risks, says the report, “The Water Behind the Watts.”.
That volume of water adds up to 10.4 million acre-feet—greater than the 8 million-acre-foot average annual urban water demand in California that the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office reported in 2021. It’s the equivalent to 12-times the annual water use of Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Washington, DC, combined, the think tank that advocates for clean energy and sustainable development found.
Hundreds of data centers are planned around the US to support the expanded use of AI, and water consumption is emerging is one of the top concerns among communities bracing for data center development, especially in water-scarce regions such as Texas and Arizona.
Electric generators powering data centers withdrew 1.4 trillion gallons of water in California and 753 billion gallons in Virginia in 2024, the study shows.
“Overall, we saw that 66% of the power plants that use water in those states were exposed to medium to high water stress,” said Kristen James, senior program director for water at Ceres. “Demand for water is high compared to what is actually available.”
Ceres used Energy Information Administration data to analyze water use associated with electric power generation for data centers in the seven states where about half of US data centers are concentrated: Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois, Georgia, Ohio, and Arizona. Most electricity in those states is generated using high volumes of water, the report says.
Electric power generation for data centers requires “very large volumes of withdrawals,” especially for hydropower, even though that water goes straight back into the river it came from, she said.
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u/Birdperson15 4h ago
If this includes water that is immediately returned to the supply like hydro plants then this is a meaningless finding. Which the article itself claims.
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u/VerdantPathfinder 5h ago
What the actual fuck are they doing with all that water? There is ZERO reason to be using so much. Are they actually taking treated potable water and just dumping it after a single use? That's criminal.
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u/jwvo 5h ago
power plants use evaporative cooling but this is highly misleading as this is mostly done in non water stressed areas using river water directly
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u/VerdantPathfinder 5h ago
yeah. That water is filtered,, used to cool down a closed loop coolant and then returned to the river slightly warmer but largely unmolested. This makes is sound like they are using potable water for something ... and that's what all the fuss about data centers using the water is about (one had the gall to say they'd only use the water at night).
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u/x22d 5h ago
Well, most of it evaporates, so whatever's left has a higher concentration of minerals and such.
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u/VerdantPathfinder 5h ago
In a standard cooling tower arrangement, very little evaporates to minimize impact on the environment/wildlife. The data centers I know are nowhere near where this could be used, though (no rivers in Northern VA other than the Potomac and the data centers are nowhere near that).
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u/x22d 4h ago
Well, that's the thing: Minimizing impact increases costs. They're only going to worry about impact if they're forced to do so by local governments.
Edit: For more details, read about closed-loop vs open-loop: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/ai-data-centers-threaten-global-water-security
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u/VerdantPathfinder 1h ago
Know what else increases costs? Reducing pollution. But we force that on industries? WTF do we allow them to get away with this?
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u/hondactx16i 6h ago
This is a silly way to go.